


Some Things Change

by AccioInvisibilityCloak



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Angst, Beatrice's POV, F/M, Swearing, canon-compliant through NMTD, not entirely canon-compliant with LLL, radio silence, really long string of missing moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 22:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AccioInvisibilityCloak/pseuds/AccioInvisibilityCloak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...Beatrice Duke just never thought her heart was one of them.</p>
<p> <br/>(A chaptered fic exploring the lost weeks after Hero’s birthday, and everything that happened when the cameras were turned off. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I realized that in order to properly show how Beatrice's feelings for Ben are changing in the aftermath of the party, I needed to first get a sense of where she was before it all went down. So this chapter happened. Fair warning, the party scene happens in this chapter, so if you're triggered by anything that happened in "Hero's Birthday", a lot of that same awfulness was also necessary to discuss here. I paraphrased a little so it isn't all there, but be forewarned. There's also swearing and language and stuff, but I only use them if it's absolutely necessary plot/character wise. And don't worry, there's still a little cuteness in this chapter I think! I hope you guys like this one! Sorry a lot of it is going to be kind of sad. Don't know yet how many chapters it will have, but i have some ideas I'm really excited about. We'll see where this takes me!
> 
> Please do not copy/duplicate this work.

Bea looked at her reflection in the mirror and took a breath. She looked so _different_ in this dress, and the makeup that Hero had helped her perfect was definitely more than she was used to. Hero had been the one who’d insisted Bea try on the cream lace dress with the ruffled sleeves that day they’d gone shopping, and as always, she had been right. It was the perfect color on Bea and fit exactly, and she had to admit she liked the way she looked. She felt… good.

Satisfied, she left the bathroom and returned to her cousin’s bedroom, where Hero was getting herself ready.

Hero was putting the finishing touches on her eyeliner when Bea walked in, but she paused in the attempt so that she could twirl around and show off the pale blue dress she loved so much. “You look so pretty!” Bea told her as she spun and laughed. Still smiling, Hero stopped dizzily to admire Bea’s own outfit.

“I knew it! That dress was _made_ for you, you look perfect. Benedick isn’t going to know what hit him,” she teased, to which Beatrice picked up a pillow and made to throw it at her.

“No, you’ll mess up my hair!” Hero giggled. “And you know I’m right! You were thinking it too!”

“Gross, I was not!”

“Liar! You like him!”

“If by ‘like’ you mean ‘want to push off a very steep cliff’, then yes, I do,” Bea retorted. “I still don’t know why you even had to invite him tonight-”

“Beatrice, he’s our friend, and I invited everyone, I couldn’t just leave him out,” Hero explained patiently, for the third time that evening.

“He is _not_ my _friend_ -“

“Oh, _really_?” Hero said innocently.

“You know what I mean,” Bea grumbled. “And you can stop bringing him up in every conversation, thank you very much.”

“Whatever you say, Beatrice,” Hero rolled her eyes and with one more amused, knowing glance at her cousin, she turned back to her mirror to finish getting ready.

Bea was left to try and convince herself that she couldn’t possibly care less what Benedick thought of her stupid dress.

In actuality, though, he was all she could think about. She was trying not to, really she was. She kind of did want to push him off a cliff, if only that would get rid of the weird heated feeling that rose in her chest whenever she thought about Ben in her (well, Hero’s) house, seeing her in this dress, maybe trying to make conversation or smiling in that sunshiny obnoxious way of his. He was still avoiding her and she was steering clear of him out of pure nerves and embarrassment, but she had no choice tonight but to face him and pretend she didn’t care that he was in love with her.

She _couldn’t_ care.

He still said the most inane things and he was so _infuriating_ and she’d never quite been able to forgive him for the awful fight they’d had the summer they were fourteen, when he’d given up on their friendship and broken her heart… but when she closed her eyes, she saw the way he’d smiled when he’d first noticed her on the sidelines at the football game. She saw the steely, lively way he looked at her during their many lunchtime debates, and the weird way he’d blushed and stumbled nervously over his words when he first saw her at the pizza party the other week. Sometimes lately, all she could hear was his voice, asking how she’d been, calling her “fair Beatrice”, calling her “love”.

It made her want to scream until she drowned the memories out.

 _Love_. Usually the very word was enough to make her break out in hives. Lately, though, it just left her with that odd, uncomfortable, heated feeling, an ache inside that she couldn’t quite dislodge. It was the same feeling she got now whenever she saw Ben. She made sure that wasn’t often, and she reminded herself of all the things she hated about him, and she forced herself not to dwell on any of this weirdness, but it wasn’t _working_. He kept on sneaking back into her mind, even though she’d sworn never to let this happen again, sworn she didn’t need a useless thing like love… and now she was blushing again.

There was definitely something very wrong with her. And she _didn’t_ like him. Some things would never, _should_  never change.

“…think I should wear the zirconia or the pearls?” Hero was saying. “Bea? Earth to Beatrice?”

“Wh-what? Sorry,” she spluttered, coming out of her reverie.

Her cousin held up two sets of earrings for her approval. “I’ve been calling your name for two minutes, Beatrice. Come on, help me decide on earrings. People will be arriving soon!” Hero was smiling all knowingly again, like she could just _tell_ what- _who_ \- Bea had been thinking about. Bea hated when she did that, and especially hated that she was right.

“You’ll look beautiful in whichever, and you know it, silly,” she said. “And stop _looking_ at me like that. I’m going downstairs to help set up. At least Leo won’t tease me incessantly about things that are _never going to happen_!”

“Not with that attitude they won’t!” Hero called after her as she went.

“Shut up!” Bea singsonged back in annoyance, Hero’s laughter following in her wake.

                                                                                                                          *******

She had to admit, the dickface cleaned up nicely. Damn him.

When he got there she was setting out the cookie trays, sneaking crumbs from a broken caramel chocolate one. She heard his voice wishing Hero a happy birthday from the hall and had to force herself to stay put rather than run upstairs and hide in her room.

What was it with her these days? She’d never wanted to hide from him before, even when he was at his most insufferable. Everything was weird, and Bea was sick and tired of it-

And then she looked up, and he was there, walking up to her station at the kitchen island, as Hero greeted a silent Claudio with a peck on the cheek and an excited smile in the background.

She hadn’t seen Benedick in anything but his usual nerdy t-shirts since she’d been back at Messina, and she had to admit the yellow button-down and sharply pressed suit he’d chosen for the party really suited him. He was… okay, fine, he was _cute_. Really, really cute, and she just barely stopped herself from pulling a face at the thought, and if that was a blush creeping across her cheeks she swore she was going to die.

 _Remember, you hate that stupid face, Beatrice, you do_ not _like him, he_ can’t _really like you, nothing’s changed, nothing at all…_

“…Hi.” He was blushing too, and Hero had been right. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Beatrice Duke dressed up like a princess again, ha-ha. I’m sure I look as ridiculous as you do,” she rambled, to cover her embarrassment. Why was he still staring? Was the dress that bad? 

“No, you… you look nice,” he started, with a little half smile, before finally blinking and becoming very interested in a smudge on the countertop between them. “It’s good to see y-” 

“Meg!” Beatrice called, waving to her friend, who had just walked in, arm in arm with Robbie. Bea had never been so glad to see anyone in her life, and bolted away from the kitchen island, leaving Benedick stranded in the middle of a sentence. 

She made a big production of greeting Meg, telling her how great she looked and insisting on a selfie. Both girls posted photos to their Twitter feeds, laughing and posing to show off their outfits, and it was fun, except for the memory of that hopelessly awkward interaction with Ben playing on an endless loop in Beatrice’s mind… 

And then her train of thought was interrupted as Balthazar and Ursula and Dogberry and Verges showed up, and Pedro and John not long after, and a few of Hero’s year 12 friends as well. It was a whirlwind of _hello_ s and _how-are-you_ s and playing hostess alongside the golden-birthday girl, and all Bea’s worries were driven from her mind until she found herself standing happily beside Hero as Leo brought out the homemade chocolate cake with his little sister’s name in white icing on the top. 

One minute, everything was fine, and Beatrice was stealing a fingerful of frosting, singing Happy Birthday along with the rest, wondering absently why Pedro looked so annoyed as he watched Hero blow out her sixteen birthday candles. 

The next, Claudio was yelling about betrayal and lies and shaking her cousin, Hero’s tiny wrists trapped by his stronger hands, and the things he was saying just made no sense at all. Beatrice stepped forward to tell him so, but he was too worked up to listen and he shouted… what he shouted, and she tried again to say something, because _no one_ talked to _her_ family like that. 

“I’m sorry, _what_ \- ?” 

“ _SHUT UP_!”, Claudio snapped, and Bea hated herself for complying but suddenly her voice was just gone, and there was nothing she could do, nothing, and he just kept shouting and Hero was crying and no one said anything, no one tried to help, and “ROBBIE of all people?” and then Meg was smacking her boyfriend across the face and Claudio was still yelling and Hero shrugged Bea’s comforting hands away and she just had to watch in confusion and horror as the night went from bad to worse, and when Claudio stormed out she turned to see Pedro just standing there, watching, looking back at them with disgust. 

Her arm was around her cousin, and when the younger girl started to cry, Beatrice could _feel_ her shoulders shaking, and all she wanted was to fix this, surely there was someone who could explain what just happened, explain that Claudio had to be wrong. Surely, if anyone had the answers…

“Pedro, what the fuck? Sort this out!” she appealed to him, certain he would be able to help- 

“It’s the TRUTH!” he said, and it hit her like a slap. 

“What? No it’s not, no-” 

“YOU’RE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT, YOU KNOW!” he was shouting, as if that had anything to do with anything, and he pushed her away.

“Go get him”, she ordered numbly after Pedro as he ran off, because someone had to make Claudio see sense, or at least make sure he didn’t hurt himself or anyone else. She had never seen anyone so furious before, had never dreamed the quiet boy she knew was capable of this. How could things have gone so wrong? 

She hardly noticed the rest of the party beginning to break up. Hero was all that mattered to her. Beatrice wrapped her arms around the small shaking form and held her as she doubled over, wracked with sobs. 

“N-no, no, B-Beatrice, what’s h-h-happening… C-Claudio…” Hero gasped through her tears, and all Bea could do was to murmur “shhh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” over and over like her mum used to do whenever she woke up crying after a bad dream. 

That’s what this had to be, a dream, just a bad dream, because there was no way in hell that _any_ of that had just happened.

She guided her cousin into the living room and eased her onto the couch, murmuring words she couldn’t comprehend through the blankness that filled her head, the roaring silence and confusion and white-hot anger. 

Vaguely she heard Benedick shouting at someone to turn off a camera. Oh, god, someone was still filming this? As if things could get any worse.

Her ears were full of Hero’s gasping breath, coming too quickly and too ragged and all at once she remembered when they were eight and seven and Hero had an episode when they were on a picnic and she just wouldn’t breathe, and the icy fear that Beatrice had felt that day was back, multiplied tenfold when she heard how bad her cousin sounded.

“Just breathe, in, out, in, out, like when we were little, remember? Breathe, Hero, it’s okay, I’m here.” She took several deep breaths as well, in and out, to show Hero what to focus on, and it actually helped to calm them both down a little. She looked around for Leo, he would know better than her if they needed to be worried about Hero’s lungs- but he was busy ordering all the guests to go home, ushering the stragglers towards the front door.

She felt someone sit beside her and looked around. Benedick, serious and calm, all of his usual mirth gone, and under the calm she could see that same anger she felt, but what did he have to be angry about? 

He didn’t speak, just sat there beside her, a comforting presence, as Bea rubbed soothing circle patterns onto Hero’s back with her thumb and helped her take more deep breaths, her head resting on Bea’s shoulder.

“I don’t- I don’t unders-s-stand, B-beatrice. What’s h-happening? Cl-claud… I didn’t- I d-didn’t, I swear I d-didn’t…” she cried, but her breathing was becoming slightly less labored, a good sign, Bea hoped. 

“I don’t know, sweetie, I don’t know. I believe you, of course I do, Hero. It’s going to be okay,” she murmured into her cousin’s hair, still in a perfect braided bun, the only thing left unmussed by the night’s events. 

“It’s n-n-never going to be oh-oh-okay…” 

Balthazar and Ursula stayed too.  Ursula perched on the armrest on Hero’s other side, holding her hand, as Balthy hummed a comforting tune from his spot on the floor, handing her tissues from a box on the coffee table when she needed to wipe her eyes.

The tissues came away black with makeup, and it streaked across Hero’s face like a liquid cloud, and a dark smear of eyeshadow and tears ended up on the skirt of the light blue dress that Hero could never wear again. It was stained beyond repair before the makeup ever touched it. 

Beatrice held her cousin, whispering comforts into her ear. Next to her, Benedick was quieter than she’d ever known he could be, and yet every part of her was keenly aware of his closeness even as she focused on keeping Hero steady and breathing. 

As her cousin’s sobs finally started subsiding, Bea’s thoughts began to drift. She couldn’t believe he was still here. What was he doing here? Shouldn’t he be off somewhere being horrible, commiserating with Claudio, with Pedro? 

It surprised Bea how much it hurt to think about Pedro. In the moment, she had been sure he would be on her side as always, Perfect Pedro the all-around great guy, always knowing how to take charge and make things better. So much for that. Bea knew, somehow, that he wasn’t coming back to save the day this time. He didn’t actually call Hero a slut, but he might as well have. Pedro just stood there and let her best friend in the world be publically humiliated on her birthday. He had looked at Hero with such hatred, like he thought she deserved every foul word. 

Beatrice felt hollow, thinking about the way he had shouted that she wasn’t always right. He’d sounded… well, he’d sounded like Benedick, the day their friendship had ended years ago. And now, when Pedro should have been here with Bea, taking Hero’s side, it was Ben who had stayed with them, stayed right beside her. 

Hero let out a watery giggle at something Balthazar had said to distract her, and it immediately turned into a hacking cough. 

Bea rubbed Hero’s back some more, and the coughing started to subside.

And then the comforting weight beside her was gone, and she could feel Ben’s sudden absence as if something had been torn away from her, and she knew a moment of terror that she had been right all along, that he was going to abandon them too, and she hated that it even mattered to her whether he stayed or not. 

But in less than a minute he came back from the kitchen with a glass of water for Hero, and Bea was so touched that he thought of that, so strangely relieved that he hadn’t left, so overwhelmed by everything, that she felt her traitorous eyes misting up as she passed the glass to a grateful Hero. 

Benedick noticed the tears. He resumed his place at her side, gently taking her hand, their fingers interlacing, and she surprised herself: she didn’t pull away.

Instead, she lightly squeezed his hand, a silent thank-you, checking that he was really real and solid and not leaving yet. He squeezed back, made those same slow circles with his thumb across the back of her hand. If anyone ever mentioned it, she would resolutely deny that any of this had happened, but she had to admit, it calmed her. She took a shaky breath and kept telling Hero things would be fine again tomorrow, and she held on. 

Balthazar and Ursula left around midnight, promising to be in touch and hugging Hero gently goodnight. She looked like she might cry again as she watched her friends go, but her breathing was soft and almost regular now. She was out of danger. 

Beatrice almost didn’t want to let go of Ben’s hand a few moments later when it came time to help Hero to bed, but she forced herself to, ignoring the way her fingers protested as they slid away from his. 

She supported her exhausted cousin up the staircase- it had never felt so steep. 

At the top, Hero walked slowly into her dark bedroom and let Beatrice help her under the covers, too tired even to change out of the ruined blue dress. 

Bea helped Hero take out her braid and ran her fingers gently through her hair, the way she knew Hero’s Mumma always used to do. She sat there in the dark a long while, stroking her cousin’s hair until her breathing turned peaceful and slow with sleep.

“Happy birthday, Hero. I love you,” Bea murmured sadly, as she crept out of the room and closed the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Beatrice quietly descended the stairs, worry for Hero and anger at the boys entwining into a hard knot in her chest. Sleep was a lost cause, so if she couldn’t do anything else for Hero right now, she could at least start picking up what was left of the party.

Beatrice reached the darkened living room, and through the doorway, saw the open space where the wooden dining table sat, where a few hours earlier, all her friends had been gathered, happy, oblivious. She stood there for a moment, looking at the empty room, and the memories bloomed in front of her eyes: Claudio screaming, Pedro glaring silently, Hero doubling over with sobs, over and over again. Fists clenched, nails biting into her palms, Beatrice forced the image of the night’s disaster away.

That was when she realized: Hero’s birthday cake was gone. The table had already been cleared. Every remnant of the party, all the paper plates and lost napkins and plastic cups had been gathered up and disposed of, and the chairs that Claudio’s outburst had dislodged from their places were neatly arranged around the table again.

There was a light on in the kitchen, and a warm, sweet scent hung in the air. She moved towards it. There was nothing else for her to do in here anyway.

She was expecting Leo, thinking maybe he was the one who’d cleared up; she had been wondering where he’d gone after the party broke up. But she was wrong.

Instead, she found Benedick sitting at the kitchen island, waiting for her with two of the aunties’ cherry-blossom patterned tea mugs and a small plate of leftover chocolate caramel cookies laid out on the countertop before him.

He’d taken off his suit jacket at some point, and the top button of the yellow shirt had come undone, and the dim light over the stove bathed him in a warm glow. Beatrice was actually sort of glad to see him there. That was new.

Ben looked up when she walked in. “Hi,” he said softly, a little nervously almost, just like he had a few hours ago before the night had imploded, and he had stayed, and he was still here, and she didn’t understand any of this at all, so she answered with the first wild thought that came to her.

“You still remember where we keep the tea things?”

She couldn’t believe he had actually made tea. It was such a Ben thing to do in a crisis, but it had to have been years since he had last been in this kitchen, and he had still known where to find everything.

“Oh, I never forget when it comes to tea, Beatrice,” he said with a cautious smile. “I just… I thought maybe you could use a little pick-me-up after… you know.”

Despite everything, Bea couldn’t suppress a tiny smile in return. She sank tiredly down next to him at the island and picked up her mug, the heat of the ceramic seeping into her fingers, not unpleasantly.

“…How’s Hero?” Ben asked, with genuine concern.

“Sleeping,” sighed Beatrice, taking a tentative sip of her tea. “I think she’ll be okay for the night. Thank you, by the way. For staying. For… everything.”

“Don’t mention it, love,” he said, and when she heard that word again, she almost dropped her mug.

“ _Shit_.” She hissed, catching the mug but spilling hot tea on her fingers in the process.

“Bea, are you okay?” Ben’s eyes widened in alarm and one hand flew out as if to help her catch the tea, even though it was safely back on the countertop already.

She didn’t think Ben had even realized what he’d just said, the idiot. He couldn’t just keep _doing_ this to her, especially not tonight, not now. How could she even _think_ about that “love”, when Hero had just cried herself to sleep?

“Oh, what do you think?” she snapped, turning away to nurse her burnt hand at the sink. “Your stupid friend just ruined Hero’s birthday, and we’re supposed to sit here having tea like nothing’s wrong? Who does that? No, I’m not okay, and I won’t be okay until this is sorted out!”

Ben sighed. “I’m so sorry about all this, Beatrice. I can’t believe Claudio did this. I _told_ him to talk to her in private, I told him not to jump to conclusions-”

And realization hit, colder than the freezing water on her fingers. _“You knew?”_

Whipping around, she found him looking back at her, confused. She was so _furious_ with him, she could barely breathe. Such an oddly familiar sensation, when everything else was so wrong. Of course he was still the same old dickface. She should have known.

“You _knew_ Claudio was thinking those things about Hero, you _knew_ he was going to humiliate her like this, and you didn’t say anything? How long have you known about this, Benedick?” she demanded.

“Bea, I-”

“ _No_. How long?”

“…Two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Bea hissed in some combination of a whisper and a shout. “Two _weeks_? You knew, for all this time, and you didn’t even try to warn us! Because you believed them, didn’t you? You hate sharing Claudio with Hero, I’ll bet you were glad to think the worst of her! I’d never have thought even _you_ could sink this low. Get out of my house.”

“Beatrice-”

She darted to the other side of the kitchen island, away from Ben.

He stood to leave, but took a step towards her instead. His placating expression did absolutely nothing to temper her anger, and he didn’t seem surprised when her only response was a murderous glare and _“Out_!”

“Would you have believed me?” he asked, not moving.

 The question brought her up short. “…What?”

Ben looked her right in the eye again, determined that she hear him out. Bea _wanted_ to throw the tea kettle at him instead, but that would just wake up Hero.

“Would you have believed me?” Ben repeated slowly. “If I had come to you two weeks ago and said, ‘Hey, Bea, so Pedro and Claudio spied on your house the other night and told me they saw Hero hooking up with Robbie in her room, but I’m a little skeptical’-”

“They _what_?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s fucked up. But the point is, you would never have listened, especially not to _me_. You’d think I was making some sick joke, or that I was the one who thought Hero was cheating. It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Beatrice glared, arms crossed, still brimming with anger but knowing he was right. She _wouldn’t_ have believed him, was _still_ having trouble believing it even when she knew it was true.

That didn’t make him any less awful for not trying, though.

“You could have done _something_ -”

“Yeah, I wish I could have,” he sighed. “You have to know I don’t believe any of it. I didn’t believe it for a second, okay? Hero would never do something like this. It has to be some kind of misunderstanding, John got his information wrong or something. I don’t get how Claudio can’t see that.”

“You’re still a dickface,” said Beatrice stonily. “But you’re right. It’s a misunderstanding, it must be. Pedro and Claudio actually _spied_ on us? I feel _sick_ …”

She trailed off, seething, the image of dark figures, hiding in the aunties’ rosebushes to look in the windows, making her skin crawl. But she and her cousins hadn’t noticed anything amiss that night. Why hadn’t they seen or heard _some_ thing? Unless…

“Wait. Two weeks ago… as in, two weeks ago Friday?”

“Yeah, yeah, must’ve been. Why? …Were you with Hero that night?” Ben sounded hopeful that they might be able to clear Hero’s name, but as Bea thought back to the night in question she realized it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“Oh my _god_ , Ben, we had a sleepover that night! Ursula and Meg stayed over, and we were watching movies in the living room all night. Hero was with us the entire time… except, we all fell asleep around midnight, and I can’t prove where she was after that,” Bea admitted. “I _know_ she didn’t do this. I’ve been sleeping right next door to her for _months_ , and the one night that actually matters… Ugh, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll think of something,” said Ben. “I promise, we’ll figure this out, Bea.”

He was beside her again, gently taking her burned hand, and every nerve ending in her body caught fire with the touch.

Before, when she was comforting Hero, she’d been too distracted to really think about the sensation of holding his hand, but now that blind panic and numbness was gone, and the full feeling of his cool fingers against hers came flooding in. The anger and the fear and confusion were still clouding her mind, but his touch softened them somehow, cleared them away just long enough that she could stop to take a breath she didn’t know she needed.

“I hope so,” she murmured in reply. “God, I hope so. I can’t stand thinking about it, about Hero… she just looked so peaceful when she fell asleep, and now she’ll have to wake up and have it all hit her, all over again…”

Beatrice had felt that way before. Just a few seconds thinking of the things they’d do and the people they’d mock that day, and then she had blinked the sleep out of her eyes and remembered that she’d lost her best friend, that he didn’t like her back… but that had been four years ago, and now he was here and he was looking at her with sad, adoring eyes.

“Whatever you and Hero need,” he whispered, “I’m here for you, okay? I’m here.”

And all of the fury of moments ago was gone, and she could almost believe him, and he was so close she could count his stupid eyelashes, and then…

“I can see that,” said a low voice from the doorway. “Why are you still here, Ben? You know it’s almost two in the morning?”

It was Leo, leaning on the doorframe with a scowl on his face. Beatrice jumped at the sound of her older cousin’s irritated voice, and yanked her hand away from Ben’s like she really had been scalded by it.

“Where the hell have _you_ been? I thought Hero might be having an episode, but you just disappeared,” she asked him, flustered.

“Well, someone had to make sure all those kids got home, yeah? Apparently I missed one, though.”

“He’s here because I want him here, Leo,” Bea started without thinking.

And now she was blushing again, damn it. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Ben. Why had she _said_ that?

“I’m still in charge until my mums get home, Beatrice, and I really don’t think now’s the best time for you to be having boys over until all hours, alright? Ben, go home. We have practice tomorrow afternoon anyway. You’ll need your rest,” Leo snapped.

“How dare you even suggest-” Beatrice hissed, coloring up, and there might have been a shouting match in here in another minute, except that Ben was already retrieving his suit jacket from its place on a nearby chair at the kitchen island, where the forgotten tea had gone cold.

“It’s fine, Bea, he’s right. It’s late. I’ll go. See you tomorrow, Leo,” he said, clearly trying to keep the peace. Leo nodded curtly as Ben passed him in the doorway.

Bea was still glaring at her cousin as she followed. She knew he was watching from the dark hallway, but she couldn’t just leave things at that.

What were you supposed to say when your nemesis was on your side, and made you tea and let you whisper-yell at him in the middle of the night? She settled for a whispered “Goodnight” and hoped it didn’t sound too much like “stay.”

And he whispered back, with the ghost of a smile. “Goodnight, love.”

She didn’t watch him go after that, just slammed the door shut behind him as quickly and quietly as possible, blushing in earnest now. Leo raised an eyebrow as she shouldered past him toward the stairs, but she ignored him. It had been a long night, and all she wanted now was to sleep, to forget everything.

Of course one word stubbornly stayed on her mind, that little word that meant _nothing_ to her.

_Love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this installment! I'm sorry this took so long. Hopefully this fic will start to move along a little bit now, but I can't say for sure when the next chapter will be ready either. Chapter Three will start to get into the days after the party happens, the actual radio silence week, so be excited for that! Thanks for reading! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**CRASH!**

Beatrice was jolted awake by the sound. What the hell?

And then everything that had happened last night came rushing back to her, the party and the boys’ outburst and Hero sobbing into Beatrice’s shoulder and Ben holding her hand…

She blinked against the sun streaming through her window and forced herself out of bed, forced her thoughts away from last night. She had to check on Hero, had to find out what that noise could have been and make sure her cousin was all right. She padded down the hall to Hero’s room, still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Hero was curled in her own bed, hidden under thick blankets, and her faint sobs reached Beatrice’s ears as she came into the room. “Hero?” she whispered uncertainly. “Are you okay? What was that noise?” When her cousin didn’t answer, she padded over and gently wrapped her arms around the shaking lump of blankets. “It’s okay, I promise it’s going to be okay. I’m so sorry, Hero.”

“Everything is ruined,” Hero’s brittle voice piped up. “How could he think I would do something like this, Beatrice? How could he say all those horrible things? He was supposed to love me. Why couldn’t he trust me?”

“Hey, hey. Don’t even think about him, Hero. I trust you, and we don’t need stupid boys. Our future’s all planned out, remember? I’m going to be a crazy old cat lady, and you’re going to be my cat, and we’re going to be just fine, ok?”

Emerging slightly from her blanket cocoon, Hero managed a tiny smile. “But I’m a person in a cat costume”, she whispered, and a laugh broke through the tears.

“You’ll be my person in a cat costume, then,” said Beatrice. “Seriously, he’s an idiot if he can’t see how wonderful and honest you are.”

“H-he’s not the only one…” Hero trailed off.

Beatrice stayed with Hero all that morning, and they just sat quietly in bed and Hero cried some more and Bea pretended not to notice the cell phone lying on the floor by the dresser, with a long, jagged crack in the glass. She thought she knew now what that crashing noise had been. If that asshole had had the nerve to try to contact Hero now…

At some point Leo called up the stairs that he was leaving to set up for that afternoon’s football practice. Beatrice’s heart clenched at the thought of the football team, especially the all-around awful Captain and his cronies. _You’re not always right, Beatrice…_

Hero had been almost calm until Leo had opened his big mouth, and now she was sniffling again because of course football would make her think of Claudio. Leo was such an idiot. Bea couldn’t believe he was just going to waltz off to coach the football team like nothing ever happened. How could he go right back to coaching Pedro and Claudio on their football plays, knowing what they did to his sister just yesterday? Beatrice glared in the general direction of the stairwell, even though Leo was already gone.

Hero was exhausted from her ordeal yesterday and the late night they’d all had. Bea wasn’t surprised, then, when her cousin eventually calmed down enough to drift back to sleep. She decided to leave Hero to rest.

On her way out of the room she bent down to retrieve Hero’s smashed phone. As she picked it up, the screen flared to life. When she saw what it said, her heart stopped all over again.

No wonder Hero threw her phone. Throwing things was exactly what Bea felt like doing right now.

Hero’s shattered screen was filled with Facebook notifications, and when she touched the screen, one of the notes popped the app open. _**Hero Duke** has been tagged in a video._ It was a poorly shot iPhone video of Claudio’s outburst at the party, and Hero’s bewildered and horrified face stared up at Beatrice from the screen, and she was glad the phone was on silent so actual sleeping Hero couldn’t be woken up by her own shaming played over again.

The whole thing was worse than Beatrice remembered, even without sound, and it cut off right as Claudio stormed out, so Pedro and Bea’s confrontation and Hero’s tears and declarations of innocence stayed hidden from the Internet’s prying eyes. All anyone would see was Claudio declaring that Hero was a cheater, and it was clear that people already believed him.

The comments on the video were even worse. All these awful year-12s from school saying horrible things about her cousin- Beatrice could barely stand to look at the hateful words on the little screen. She wanted to smash the stupid phone into a million stupid pieces, she wanted to murder every last person who had anything to do with any of this, especially Claudio and Pedro, whose names glared at her from the Likes section of the video post. She wanted to scream.

Instead, she took a deep breath and turned off the phone and left it on Hero’s little nightstand, so she could find it if she needed it, and left the younger girl to her much-needed nap.

She was back in her room, trying and failing to distract herself with _Frankenstein_ , when the doorbell rang.

Sighing, she stomped downstairs to answer it. Leo probably forgot something he needed for practice, but shouldn’t he have house keys on him? He was just lucky he hadn’t woken Hero, Bea thought to herself, annoyed.

Downstairs, she looked through the little window in the front door. Bea wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry or smash something when she peered out and ended up with an eyeful of TARDIS. There was only one person she knew who actually owned that stupid t-shirt, and she was _really_ not in the mood to deal with this right now. Especially not after she’d just spent all morning resolutely trying not to think about _I’m here for you_ and _we’ll think of something_ and _goodnight, love_. So much for that.

“What do you want, Benedick?” Bea asked tiredly, opening the door with every intent to make him go away as quickly as possible.

She couldn’t look at him. Her hand tingled where he had held it last night. She curled it into a fist and the memory vanished, trapped between her fingers.

“I just… wanted to make sure you were okay,” he admitted. “And, uh, my mum was making banana bread this morning, and I thought maybe you and Hero might like some? How- how is Hero, by the way?”

Bea sighed, taking the paper bag of banana bread from him. “She’s resting. Listen, now’s not the best time- Hey, wait, shouldn’t you be at practice? Leo left ages ago, they’ve probably already started.”

“Yeah, I guess… but I don’t feel like just kicking the ball around and acting like last night didn’t happen, you know?”

“Actually, I think I’d be much happier if I _could_ pretend it didn’t happen. In fact, I really, really wish it hadn’t. You should go to practice. Leo’ll be wondering where you are.” It came out colder, harsher than she’d intended.

He got the hint, and a flash of what almost looked like hurt crossed his face as he turned to leave.

“Ben-” she said before she could stop herself. _Damn it Beatrice, you’re supposed to be chasing him off, not keeping the conversation going!_

He came back to the doorway, a little too eagerly.

“Th-thanks for coming by. I’ll tell Hero you visited, she’ll appreciate the thought.”

“Right,” Ben mumbled, staring at the ground. “Yeah. It was nothing, really.”

“I’ll see you in school, then,” she blurted, blushing furiously, and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to invite him in, but she was afraid and confused and just not okay, so for the second time in as many days, she slammed the door in his face instead.

_That was weird._

As soon as the door was closed, she wanted to open it again. As soon as he was gone she wanted to let him in, she wanted him to come back. She shouldn’t want that at all.

There was only one other time in her life when she had felt nearly as low and heartbroken as she did right now, and it had all been because of Benedick. Hadn’t she learned anything from that summer, and if not that, then from what had happened to Hero just yesterday? Trusting people enough to… to care about them, to let them care about you, it just wasn’t worth it and it never had been.

She had built up these walls for a reason, hidden behind bickering and hatred so she would never make the mistake of caring about anyone like that again. But last night, he had done and said all the right things, been a better friend than Pedro ever was, stayed with her long after everyone else was gone. And she had looked at him as they stood too close together in the darkened kitchen, and she couldn’t look away. Suddenly her walls had seemed less strong. Suddenly there was a crack right through the stone around her heart.

Suddenly, standing there and thanking him just now, she had felt it again, and she was terrified by it.

So she closed the door against it all and went back to her room and tried to pretend she wasn’t still stuck in that dark hallway last night, wanting to say so many things, losing her train of thought because _love_. It might really be true, then. He might… after all this time, he might actually like her.

And what would it matter if he did? She couldn’t go down that road again. She couldn’t get distracted, she had to be strong for Hero, because this was only going to get worse before it got better. And maybe Benedick was on their side, maybe he believed them, but that didn’t mean anything, that didn’t solve anything. She just didn’t know what to do, what to think.

More videos and nasty comments on Facebook and Twitter. More stifled tears from the general direction of Hero’s room. More radio silence from Leo. The day just got worse and worse, and every single time she thought she was about to lose it, she heard Ben's stupid calming voice in her head. _We’ll figure this out, okay?_

Struggling through her Physics homework later on, she took a snack break and discovered that Mrs. Hobbes’s banana bread was absolutely delicious. Because of course it was.

Physics. It made no sense.

Against her better judgement, she picked up her phone and opened a new text window. “Hey, what did you get for problem seven?”

His reply came almost immediately. In spite of herself, she smiled down at the screen. She didn’t know what she wanted or how she felt at all, but maybe she didn’t have to.

Tomorrow would be another shitty day. For the moment though, things might maybe just be sort of okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is affectionately known by me as "oh, I GIVE UP I'M JUST POSTING THE THING RIGHT NOW AND BE DONE WITH IT." I hope you enjoyed it despite my frustrations with it. Chapter Four will get into the school week. Updates to this are going to continue to be pretty random, because I'm a busy busy fangirl. It's like waiting for a new Benedick video, you never can tell what you're going to get and when ;)
> 
> Also: have realized I know nothing about high school sports and when they practice, but we know Leo is intense enough to make them practice all year round or something like that, from one of the Q&As, so I'm guessing he's also the type of guy who would reschedule a missed during-the-week practice for a Sunday even though that's not usually a practice day. Therefore, you may ignore how weird it is that there's a practice mentioned happening on a Sunday. Ugh. Details are hard. Please forgive my errors.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I changed the ending of this chapter because I realized certain things needed to happen that I hadn't left room for by rushing the ending of this one. So the end is slightly different, and I cut a bit. Chapter Five is coming along well, I hope to finish it soon! :)

School on Monday was, predictably, awful.

Hero had begged Leo to let her stay home today, and Beatrice had backed her up. But Leo was insistent: if Hero didn’t have a fever or nausea or trouble catching her breath, then she was going to school.

Beatrice didn’t understand it. Couldn’t he see Hero was upset? Didn’t he realize how hard it would be for her, facing all these rumors, facing _Claudio_? Beatrice couldn’t believe Leo was being so inconsiderate of his sister’s feelings.

But Hero just laid a placating hand on Bea’s arm, said softly, “It’s fine, Beatrice”, and went back to her room to get ready.

Despite everything, Hero marched quietly out of the house that morning with her head held high, having finally cried herself out the night before. But she was worryingly pale and her eyes were glassy and hooded with exhaustion, and when Beatrice took her hand briefly for moral support, she could feel Hero’s fingers shaking.

On the bus, Hero stared unseeingly out the window at the houses racing past, while Beatrice sat silently beside her, trying not to think about the day ahead, wishing angrily that Claudio was the one shaking with fear right now, that all those nasty year 12s from Facebook would just magically transfer schools so Hero didn’t have to worry about seeing any of them today.

Bea had already heard a few murmurs and noticed people staring as they’d gotten on the bus, and she had a bad feeling things were about to get much worse than that.

Sure enough, as soon as Bea and Hero walked into school, the whispers started. Glares and giggles alike followed them down the hall, the sharp words weighing on them like a tangible _thing_ in the air.

_“Hero Duke… with Robbie Borachio, can you believe it?_

_… poor Claudio… humiliated…_

_…she’s still denying… almost fainted in the middle of the party… No, it’s true, there’s video!_

_...Claudio had every right to dump her… what a slut… always the quiet ones…_

_… I don’t believe it, Hero Duke?_

_…It’s_ true _, Pedro said… shhh, there she is!”_

Beatrice got angrier and angrier with every bit of overheard conversation. She wanted to _shake_ the whisperers until they realized how awful they were being, how wrong they were. She’d do anything to protect her cousin from their hateful talk. There had to be _something_ she could do to fix this.

She settled for glaring in the general direction of the whispering kids until they went away or vanished behind their locker doors, but this only worked while she was with Hero. Beatrice was powerless to stop the gossip once they had to go their separate ways for class.

 Hero promised she would be fine, but Beatrice noticed the slight tremble in her voice.

 "See you at lunch, ok?" Bea said reassuringly. Her cousin nodded and walked off in the direction of her locker, determinedly ignoring the buzz of conversation in the halls.

It was surprising how many stares and whispers still followed Beatrice even now that she was alone.

\

_“That’s her cousin. She’s new.”_

_“I wonder if she knew Hero was cheating…”_

_“I bet she knows plenty.”_

_“Heard she turned down Pedro Donaldson, led him on and then laughed in his face…”_

_“…just like her cousin… runs in the family…”_

“SHUT UP!” Bea snapped in the direction of that last person, a kid she’d never even seen before. He and his friends fell silent and scurried away. Beatrice continued on her way, glaring daggers at anyone who so much as _glanced_ at her. She didn’t even want to _think_ about what Hero must be getting from the likes of these idiots, probably a hundred times worse than this. Bea would honestly rather they kept whispering about her instead and just left Hero alone. No such luck.

 

                                                                                                                    ***

 

Walking into Physics was a disconcerting reminder of how much things had changed since the weekend. Now, she could barely look at Pedro, who had moved seats so that he was clear across the room from his usual spot next to her.

He was making casual small talk with the kid in the seat next to his, nodding and smiling and fishing his notebook out of his bag, like everything was normal, like he wasn’t avoiding Beatrice at all. Like he wasn’t part of the reason Hero was miserable right now.

Seeing Pedro every day in school these past few months had been both weird and really cool. He was always a summer friend before, and sitting next to him in Physics and comparing answers on their work and making small talk and swapping inside jokes all day was- well, it was like spending summer with her Wellington friends. It just didn’t _happen_ , so in a way, it had felt kind of special, even though it was only everyday life.

Sure, things had been a little awkward since the campaign video when Pedro had kind of sort of asked her out, and in the weeks leading up to the party he’d been a little quieter and less cheerful, but things had still been cool, they had still been friends. At least, she thought they had.

This time last week Beatrice would have been the one talking and laughing with Pedro before class. Today, though, seeing Pedro in class was awful. It made her angrier than ever, because it _hurt_. Knowing Pedro was having no trouble ignoring her, was completely convinced of Hero’s guilt- it hurt just as much as it had that night at the party when he’d run away. More, because since then he had clearly had a hand in the video footage on Facebook and the whispers in the halls and Hero’s trembling hands and ashen face as she’d marched into school like it was the last thing she’d ever do.

Pedro had been one of Beatrice’s best friends for years, had been friendly with Hero for just as long, and had then betrayed them both without a thought, without a scrap of proof. Some Prince of Messina he turned out to be.

Beatrice was glaring in Pedro’s general direction and thinking darkly about just what kind of royal title Pedro really deserved, when a familiar, English-accented voice cut through her thoughts and made her look around.

“Hey. You okay?”

Benedick. She’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t noticed him there, next to her in the spot that was usually Pedro’s, still being inexplicably not horrible. He must have asked if she was okay a thousand times already since everything happened, honestly.

And if Ben’s concern managed to distract her from her fury for just a second, if hearing his voice took her right back to _we’ll figure this out, I’m here for you_ , if that thought actually helped… well, that was completely off the point, wasn’t it?

“Fine,” she lied. “Thanks.”

He paused for a moment at that, and she thought she might just get away without having to talk to him, without having yet another confusing, infuriating thing to think about today, but no.

“Did you ever figure out that one homework problem? The one we were stuck on yesterday?”

“No thanks to you. Your answer was so convoluted, I basically had to do the entire thing over again to figure out what went wrong!”

“Hey, you’re the one who texted me, I told you this is my worst class,” he said, amused.

“Well, maybe…” she started, but stopped herself just in time.

_Maybe I didn’t text you just because of Physics, dickface._

_Wait, no, nonono don’t think that. There is no other reason. None._

Beatrice was actually quite good at Physics, but that did not mean she wasn’t allowed to get stuck on certain problems, and it was certainly perfectly acceptable to ask a classmate for help once in a while, even if she happened to know for a fact that he had no idea what he was doing either.

But there had also been the fact that absolutely everything sucked, and it was only going to get worse, and the only time since the party that everything wasn’t entirely awful, was when she was talking to… No. Absolutely not. No ulterior motives present. At all. …Well, maybe just a little bit?

Beatrice refused to think about this anymore. She had to focus on being furious, because the anger was all she had.

Their teacher arrived and the class began, and Bea couldn’t bring herself to pay attention. There was just too much else going on in her head. Last night’s homework was much easier to decipher than all of this.

She couldn’t concentrate in _any_ of her classes that morning. Whispers and curious glances from various classmates, continued cold shoulder and the occasional glare from Pedro, a few more furtive concerned looks from Ben, who continued being weirdly, absurdly nice to her- it was never-ending. Beatrice was exhausted after just one class period. It took all the energy she had not to murder half of Messina High right there. 

                                                                                                                            ***

Lunchtime should have been a blessed relief. However, it presented a new problem: their big group of friends always sat in their own corner of the courtyard together. Clearly, seating arrangements would have to change.

When Beatrice reached the courtyard, she saw that Pedro and Claudio had decided to sit with some of the other guys from the football team instead. Again, they were sitting there chatting away like nothing was wrong, like nothing had changed. Assholes.

Beatrice headed for her usual table, now knowing it would be free of lying jerks for the time being. She found Ursula and Balthazar sitting there with a still very pale and silent Hero, who was looking down and picking sadly at her sandwich. Bea took the open seat beside her cousin. “Hey. How was your morning?”

“I’ve had better,” said Hero. “I just wish this day would end already, you know?”

It turned out that Beatrice had been right. The backlash Hero had gotten today had been much worse than the whispers in Bea’s classes. Hero didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t need to- her expression said it all. She looked lost in sadness and anger and exhaustion. Bea tried to distract her, asking about the book she was currently reading for her lit class, and the next cookie recipe she wanted to try baking, and what she wanted to do after school today, but she could tell that all Hero was thinking about was Claudio.

The conversation at their little table, barely started, was already tapering out, and they sat in silence, each lost in thought for the moment. Bea noticed that Ben hadn’t shown up to lunch yet. Despite herself, she wondered where he was. All morning, alongside the whispers and laughter and gossip swirling around and filling her mind, she’d kept hearing their conversation Saturday night, and for the first time since she had started school, she actually didn’t hate the fact that she’d been seated next to him in almost every class they shared.

He was probably just running late to lunch today. It was no big deal, surely. What time did he usually show up in the courtyard? She couldn’t recall.

It didn’t matter. Who cared where he was anyway?

Bea cast around for something else to think about, some distraction. She noticed that Balthazar was staring sadly off towards the far end of the courtyard. Beatrice followed his gaze and found herself looking at Pedro. At that moment, Pedro looked up- right into Bea’s eyes. He held her stare for a moment, his eyes just as cold and unrelenting as they had been that night at the party. Then she blinked and the moment broke, and he had turned back to Claud.

Claudio- Beatrice couldn’t even _think_ about how _livid_ she was with him, couldn’t even think his name without wanting to scream. She had thought he was a good guy, but she clearly didn’t know him at all.

How was it they just got to sit there, perfectly content, absolutely unscathed, after what they did? And while Hero, tired and sad, eyes glued to the worn green-painted tabletop, had to listen as the entire school bought into the lies and shunned her?

 Bea could hear it happening all around her too, and over at their table, Pedro and Claudio were actually laughing, and all she could see and think and feel were the anger and the sadness and the need to wipe those smirks right off their faces.

Now they were beckoning someone over to their table. She turned her head to see who it was- oh. About time he showed up. She was half expecting Ben to go over there and sit with the guys and forget all about what had happened. Trusting him wasn’t something she was used to. But he was shaking his head, tossing a forgotten notebook onto the table in front of Claudio and walking away. Walking right towards her, towards the place where just the other week they’d been bickering about mango skins and hating each other, when everything was normal.

“Hey, guys. Can I sit with you?” he asked, faux-brightly. Before Beatrice could think, before she could consider objecting, Ursula had said “Sure,” gesturing towards the last open space at the table. Which was right next to Beatrice. Damn it.

From the moment he sat down there was a marked change in the mood at the table. Ben asked Balthazar about the latest song he’d been composing, and some of the sadness left Balth’s eyes when he talked about his music. Beatrice noticed that he still looked over at the footballers’ table a couple times when he thought no one was looking, though.

The conversation shifted from Balth’s music to music in general, and Ursula and even Hero chimed in a few times about that. Beatrice, for a change, was the silent one. 

It was just so weird. Benedick was supposed to be obnoxious, he was supposed to be the one who made her furious, she wasn’t supposed to enjoy just listening to the conversation instead of challenging everything he said. But she didn’t have the energy today to do much more than roll her eyes and make a few barbed comments about his taste in music, and when he returned them it was much less malicious than usual. 

And somehow she and Ben ended up walking to their next class together, still in the middle of discussing whether Fife and the Drums were actually any good, a surprisingly civil conversation. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d managed to get through more than a couple of sentences without lapsing into insults and terrible comebacks. It was sort of refreshing, actually. 

For about three seconds.

And then, of course, they were back in class, and she was plunged back into furious reality. One nice conversation wasn't going to fix any of this, but she was glad for the brief reprieve. There were still whispers all around her, and wide eyes following Hero through the halls, and ex-friends glaring at Bea across classrooms, and on, and on, until finally the Monday from hell was over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this was a filler chapter, I think, but I hope it was okay? I know my headcanon that Hero actually did go to school that week might be a little controversial, but it was the explanation that made the most sense to me. In "The Three Seniors", Claudio says something like "Where has she gone?" when Hero's "death" is brought up, which to me suggests she's been around prior to this, however bad a place she's in. And her being at school certainly clears up the problem of her missing so much school. This chapter might not be the greatest but I just want to post it. I'm sorry if it's completely OOC or something. I feel like I've lost my edge with this fic, I don't know. I have no idea when chapter 5 will be ready, but until it is, I'm doing the LLFL challenge thing, so that's around if you want to read it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: I had to make some changes to the end of chapter four, so for this to make sense, I'd highly suggest you please reread Chapter 4 before starting Five! I promise it will make more sense that way!
> 
> The first week post-party brings more ups and downs as certain friendships fall apart and not-quite friendships grow closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, can you believe it? A new chapter of STC? Wasn't this fic abandoned? It's been long enough since it updated, what's been going on?  
> Well, no, I didn't give up on this fic (although I came about as close as you can get). I've been very busy with school and my original writing projects, and also taking a break from fic following the Lovely Little Ficlets challenge, just to recharge my writing batteries. But I seem to have pushed through and gotten this very long chapter done for you. My original plan for this fic was ten chapters, and if I stick to that, that means we're officially halfway through! Woo-hoo! Anyway, I hope you like this one! I'm a little nervous about it, but if it isn't perfect, at least it's done. :)
> 
> Warning for angst and swears and gendered slurs. Because this is Hero's birthday aftermath we're talking about. It isn't pretty.

The rest of the week was much the same as Monday had been. Every day there was more and stranger gossip in the halls of Messina High, talk of Hero planning to drop out or run away with Robbie or slowly dying of shame, sexist slurs and insults and awful things under breath or hidden behind anonymous posts online.

Every day Hero was quieter and paler, turning inwards, trying to block it all out.

Every day Beatrice was angrier, more determined to find a way to help Hero, to fix things.

And it wasn’t like they were alone. They had each other, and Ursula, and Balthazar, and, well…

They had Benedick.

He kept sitting at their table at lunch instead of with the team, and Beatrice walked with him to class every day because they were going the same way anyway. In Physics they kept sitting next to each other, talking about boring, safe, school-related things, and pointedly ignoring Pedro- and everyone else, for that matter.

 If not quite friends, at least now they weren’t enemies either, and she was glad. Being not-quite-friends with Benedick was, Bea thought, extremely weird- but surprisingly, not altogether awful.

Not like everything else that had been going on lately.

                                                                                     ***

For one thing, Pedro had started trying to talk to her before class again. He seemed to expect her to agree with him about what had happened, and on Tuesday morning he actually had the nerve to come right up to her desk and confront her.

“What do you want, Pedro?” she’d asked disinterestedly, not looking up from her assignment book.

He’d stepped forward, splaying both hands across her desk and leaning down, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Beatrice. Come on. What did I do? Why are you avoiding me?”

“ _Avoiding_ \- oh, that’s a _really_ good one, Pedro. Who’s the one who changed seats in class? Who’s been spreading _lies_ about my cousin? Who couldn’t desert us fast enough after the party on Saturday? And you think _I’m_ the one with avoidance issues?” she snapped.

“I came in on Monday and someone else’s stuff was at my desk, what was I supposed to do?” said Pedro defensively, backing away. “You can’t hold Saturday against me just because I stood up for my friend-”

“Oh, is _that_ what you did?” Beatrice said through a humorless laugh. “Because it sure as hell didn’t look that way to me. Or to Hero!”

“Whatever. You _know_ she deserved it,” Pedro spat, and it was only the teacher’s sudden entrance that saved him from Beatrice’s wrath. Although she did manage an impressive string of barely audible swear words in his general direction. That felt good.

“Take your seat, Mr. Donaldson. Silence, Miss Duke,” the teacher said, oblivious.

 

So Bea seethed – _silently_ \- for the rest of the period. She refused to look at Pedro again, but if looks could kill, Beatrice’s furious glaring at the board that day would have reduced it to dust.

Bea vowed to redouble her efforts to ignore Pedro Donaldson, because he clearly wasn’t worth giving the time of day. He kept trying, but she had said all she wanted to say to him. No matter how many times Pedro tried to talk to her, to plead his ridiculous case, to be her friend again, she tuned him out and walked away. She couldn’t be held responsible for whatever she might do if she actually had to listen to that shit. There were more important things to worry about, anyway.

 

              Meg hadn’t been in school for a few days. Beatrice hadn’t seen or heard from her since the party- no one had, and the rest of their remaining friends were starting to worry. Meg wasn’t even answering her phone, and she hadn’t tweeted since the selfie she’d posted from the party.

Meg had looked so _happy_ in that picture. Bea herself had looked so happy. They’d had no idea what they were walking into. If only she could have stopped it. _Why couldn’t she have stopped it?_

 

It was a thought she’d had a thousand times already since that night.

 

She hoped Meg was okay. Robbie was such an asshole, but she knew Meg had really liked him, and judging by that slap, they were probably broken up again. Meg had to be hurting too, after what had happened. Hopefully, she would at least get in touch with one of her friends soon, let them know what was going on.

Beatrice and Hero walked into school Wednesday morning, chatting softly and trying to ignore the few stares they were still getting. Some people had simply taken to acting like the Dukes didn’t exist when they saw them in the halls, but other sets of eyes still followed them everywhere, and they knew the Messina rumor mill had only just started with Hero.

They reached the hallway where Hero’s locker waited. Across the hall, a familiar dark head was just visible behind another locker door. Hero perked up instantly and rushed to her, Beatrice on her heels.

“Meg! You’re back!” said Hero happily.

Bea was just as relieved as Hero was to see Meg again; they’d both felt terrible when they’d realized Meg was cutting class, and that she was going through her breakup with Robbie alone. At least now they’d all have each other to lean on again.

 “Meg!” Beatrice exclaimed, as her friend turned to face her. “Are you okay?”

Meg did not look excited to see them at all. She surveyed them with a disgruntled expression, and when she took off her large white-framed sunglasses to deposit into her locker, they saw that her eyes were bloodshot and heavy with exhaustion.

 “Peachy,” she hissed.

“But where were you?” asked Hero, hugging her. Meg just stood stiffly, waiting to be released, until finally Hero stepped away. “We were worried about you.”

“Why do you care where I was? I doubt I missed much in this hellhole,” Meg snarled, getting out her books.

“It’s been awful,” Hero admitted softly. “Everyone believes I… they keep talking about it, and they won’t stop staring at me, and… I’m just really glad you’re back.”

“Yeah,” added Beatrice. “Me too. Let’s just talk about that instead of… you know.”

Meg rolled her eyes.

“Let me guess,” she said. “All the girls, talking shit behind your back? Hitting on your scumbag ex while you’re standing right there? Guys laughing at you, asking for a taste of what Robbie got?”

Hero nodded miserably, her hand rising to cover her mouth as Meg’s words dredged up all the horrible happenings of the last three days. Beatrice put a hand on Hero’s shoulder in support, but Hero shrugged it off, shaking her head.

“I just wish it would stop,” she said softly.

“Now you know how it feels to be the _Queen of Scream_. Get used to it, bitch.”

As she spoke, Meg stuffed her books into her shoulder bag and slammed the locker shut.

“Meg- I- I didn’t do anything- please, you have to believe me, I-” Hero gasped.

“Don’t talk to me,” Meg snapped, and Beatrice, frozen in disbelief, thought she heard the beginning of a sob as the other girl turned on her heel and stalked away.

Hero was left shaking, stunned, tears welling in her eyes too. After a moment she ran after Meg, still pleading her case, offering apologies, her voice shaking against the words.

Beatrice stood openmouthed, watching them go, wanting to yell after Meg for an explanation, silenced by shock, barely even registering her anger, it had become so familiar to her lately. What the hell was _that_?

She had thought that Meg would understand. Yeah, she was hurting, she had been betrayed just like they had, but even so- if there was anyone Beatrice would have expected to stand by Hero, to believe in her, it would have been Meg.

But she didn’t.

 

                                                                                 ***

Thursday. Meg wasn’t speaking to them, Pedro and Claudio were still laughing at Hero’s shame, Leo was still being distant at home, and school was a battlefield and a torture.

The whole Meg debacle was a huge blow for Hero, who on top of her grief and confusion and guilt over Claudio, and the isolation of having everyone at school talking about her like they’d been, now also felt horrible about hurting her friend, even though Hero clearly hadn’t done anything wrong.

Beatrice felt bad for Meg, but she couldn’t help being livid about Meg’s not believing them. It was _Robbie_ she should be upset with, not Hero!

“Maybe she’ll come around on her own,” Ursula said placatingly when she heard what had happened. “I’ll talk to her, make sure she’s okay. Meg loves you, Hero. She’s just in a bad place right now.”

Hero nodded and said she hoped that was true. She didn’t look at all convinced that Meg would change her mind, though.

“I really think we need to do something about all this,” Ursula said softly to Hero.

It was just the three of them at the lunch table so far, and Ursula had taken the opportunity of privacy to bring up her idea for what exactly they should do.

 “I got footage of practically the whole party, and I was going to delete it, but... Today I heard Nerissa telling Emilia- well, it doesn’t matter what they were saying. The problem is that they’re still saying it! The rumors are only getting worse, and the video could help stop it, I’m sure it could.”

“No!” Beatrice cut her off. “I can’t even believe you kept filming all that. What will it do to Hero, broadcasting that again for everyone to see? Like they haven’t seen enough already!”

“It will show everyone how upset she was! They’ll be able to see that she didn’t know, she had no idea what Claudio was talking about. That’s as good as proof, right?” said Ursula. “And there’s also your viewers to think of. My tumblr messages lately are all people worried about why you’ve gone silent, and I thought if you got them on your side then-”

“No. No way. It’ll just make everything worse! You can’t do this to her, Ursula, she’s upset enough!” Beatrice insisted.

“I just think it would be good to let people know her point of view-”

 

“I don’t want anything to do with it,” Hero cut in suddenly. “ _That’s_ my point of view. I don’t want to talk about this, I don’t want to think about it. It won’t change the fact that Meg won’t talk to me, Claudio won’t even look at me, and I have no idea _why_ and- oh, just forget it. I don’t care.”

And she stormed off.

 

All Bea wanted to do was go with her, but the look in Hero’s eyes convinced her to give her cousin some space, so she stayed put.

 Beatrice could already feel the eyes of the whole courtyard on them, the other kids having seen Hero leaving and heard some of the commotion. She sighed and put her fingers to her temples.

“Don’t post the video, Ursula. Trust me, it’s a bad idea,” Beatrice insisted, head in her hands.

Ursula didn’t answer, just peered at Beatrice through the lenses of her glasses, as if trying to decide whether this was worth arguing. Which, Beatrice thought rudely, it obviously _wasn’t_ , because she was always right and Ursula, especially this time, was wrong, wrong, _wrong_.

 

“Promise me you won’t do anything with the footage just yet, Ursula? Please?” she tried again, and Ursula sighed.

“Okay, but the second I start hearing that Hero is pregnant or something, the video goes up. You know she got a mean note shoved into her locker yesterday? I’m just trying to help her, Beatrice. Just like you are.”

“She didn’t tell me that,” said Beatrice, mostly to herself. Hero had never kept things from her before…

Troubled, she tried to concentrate on her homework again. Ursula was scribbling something in a notebook, and Beatrice watched her warily.

 

They were just getting used to life post-disaster, the last thing Hero needed was another upheaval. Bea just hoped all these gossipy kids could start learning to keep their mouths shut, before Ursula decided to take matters into her own hands.

Posting that footage would only make everything worse, she was sure of it.

 

                                                                                       ***

 

Beatrice was waiting in the hall outside the classroom where Hero was supposed to be making up a quiz from the other day that she’d apparently royally screwed up. Bea couldn’t blame her; she’d been having trouble concentrating on her schoolwork lately too, after all.

 She was curled up on the hard tiled floor with a book, but all she could think of was Meg’s stricken, betrayed expression yesterday morning, and Ursula’s discerning stare as Beatrice had tried to talk her out of posting that video. Bea wasn’t sure it was even possible for things to get any more messed up, but testing their luck like that was definitely not the way to go.

And then she thought of Hero, eyes welling with tears as she’d stormed away, not wanting anything more to do with her friends, leaving them to argue over whether to let the world see the worst night of her life lit up in pristine HD.

Beatrice sighed and tried again to focus on the page in front of her. She had a hundred more pages to read for tomorrow, but she’d been stuck on the same sentence for a few minutes now, for obvious reasons.

How long had she been sitting here, again? She looked at her watch- and swore under her breath.

At least Hero wouldn’t have to deal with any more nasty comments on the bus today, because Beatrice was pretty sure they’d just officially missed it. The only problem was, now they would have to brave the dreaded Messina High hill on foot.

It was only a quiz. How much longer could Hero be? Bea gave up and closed the book, leaning her head back against the locker behind her and closing her eyes, trying not to think of anything at all.

“Hey, what are you still doing here?”

She shot back up and looked around at the sound of the voice.

Benedick stood against the wall opposite her, looking curiously down at her uncomfortable sprawl across the floor, and she absolutely did not let her eyes linger at the way he leaned, all limbs and awkwardness and charm- no, not charm, of course not charm, she didn’t just think that thought, not at all, and how dare he show up here making her think things, staring down at her with a little half-smile. She hated that half-smile. The full one was better.

_No, no, train of thought, stop that, say something!_

 “I could ask you the same question, dickface,” she snapped, sitting up straighter. She was trying to peacefully stew in anger and sadness and guilt, and this was her hallway first, wasn’t it?

“Well, you see, the exit is that way,” Benedick replied. “So I don’t really have a choice. I’ll just have to interrupt your precious hallway time for a minute, sorry.”

“I’m waiting for Hero,” she said, more calmly this time, nodding to the closed door. _Overreacting, Beatrice._ “Makeup quiz.”

“Ah.” He came over and sat beside her. She shot him a quizzical look.

“I thought you were leaving.”

“I’m not in a rush or anything. I thought you could use some company.”

“Right. Company.”

They fell silent a moment. It was odd- in all the time they’d known each other, they’d never shared half as much silence as they had this week. They’d never run out of things to say before, but lately they’d both been at a loss for words.

The silence was palpable, and she didn’t like it- the way it sent her thoughts spinning from Hero’s birthday to her fourteenth summer to the strangeness of not-quite-friendship and not-quite-feelings. So she filled it.

“Why are you still being nice to me, anyway? I’d have thought you’d go back to normal by now, once you’d stopped pitying me.”

It was a real worry, one that she didn’t know she had, until she voiced it. What if he was only being nice because he felt sorry for her, what if he really didn’t believe Hero at all? She’d thought that he was being genuine, after the party, but what if…

“I mean, if you’d rather I be a jerk and leave you to languish in the hallway by yourself-” he started, resting a hand against the lockers as though to push himself back to his feet.

“No,” Beatrice reached out without thinking, but pulled back her hand immediately. He was smiling again; he had seen. “I just- I never said I _needed_ company, I have a book.”

“Our history textbook is such fascinating reading, isn’t it?”

She ignored that comment.

“Seriously, though. You don’t have to sit here with me, you can go if you want,” she persisted, suddenly realizing how very alone they were in the empty hall, realizing that her anger was vanishing again. She couldn’t promise herself that her walls would stay up, if she forgot to make them. She had to hate him, at least a little, for Hero’s sake- and she could already see herself forgetting that.

“I know,” he said simply, not moving. She sighed, half frustration, half relief.

“What?” Ben asked.

She couldn’t very well admit the real reason she was frustrated, she’d barely even admitted that to herself. Panicking, Bea heard herself say, “I don’t know, I’m just really not in the mood to deal with that hill today, ugh.”

 _Nice save_ , _Beatrice._ Was that the best she could do?

“Ooh, you have to walk home? That sucks,” Ben said, latching onto the conversational topic. That hill was one thing every Messina High student could commiserate with each other about.

“Yeah, Hero’s freakishly long makeup quiz already made us miss the bus, I bet she got an essay question or something,” Beatrice told him.

"You know, I drove today, so if you and Hero wanted a ride, it wouldn’t be out of my wa-"

"Ohh, no. I do _not_ need your help, and besides, getting in a car with a known serial killer? You really think I'm that stupid?" Teasing Ben was a reflex at this point, and avoiding him, a necessity. Not-quite-friends did not carpool, on that much Beatrice was clear.

"So you did like the bird video!" said Ben triumphantly.

 

She couldn’t think of anyone else who’d be _proud_ to be called a serial killer, honestly.

 

"I never said _like_. It was completely-"

"Ingenious? Inspired? Tragicomic? Heartbreaking?"

"Cringe-worthy?"

"Ouch. Lady Disdain returns. I’m wounded.” Benedick put a hand to his chest like he was trying to contain a mortal injury or something.

 

Back on familiar, bickering territory, Bea allowed herself a smile.

 

“Not my fault you’re a terrible vlogger. I pride myself on my brutal honesty, dickface.”

“Believe me, I know. Have fun walking, Duke,” he snickered. “Maybe you can make a vlog about that when you get home, it’d be more interesting than your usual stuff.”

“I could make several vlogs about how annoying you are,” she shot back, ignoring how awful that comeback was, not to mention how much she had already vlogged about exactly that topic.

 “Well, it was nice while it lasted,” Ben sighed.

"What was?"

"Us, not fighting. For a second there I thought maybe you didn’t completely hate me after all."

"I think you might be one of the only people I _don't_ hate right now, surprisingly,” Beatrice found herself murmuring. She _should_ hate him, she knew. She just… couldn’t. Not anymore.

"That means a lot coming from you, Beatrice. You're astonishingly tolerable yourself, on a good day," Ben quipped.

"Says the serial killer."

 

They were both smiling now, Ben with his hands raised in defeat, accepting his bird-murdering title with grace. For the first time all week, Beatrice was able to put the constant anger and worry out of her mind, and that felt amazing, no matter the niggling sense of guilt she felt for being anything but furious.

“Seriously, though,” Benedick laughed. “If you and Hero don’t want to walk, the offer of a ride is still open. I don’t mind.”

“It would be taking my life into my own hands,” she mused.

“So would walking on that hill, to be fair.”

“True… I still don’t need you, you know. Hero and I’ll be fine getting home on our own.”

“Not saying you wouldn’t be.”

“If you kill us I am coming back and haunting your ass.”

“I am an excellent driver,” he said indignantly.

“Mm-hmm, that’s why Pedro won’t carpool with you,” she shot back, and suddenly the bubble burst.

At the mention of Pedro, it all came rushing back, all the drama, all the horrible results of the party disaster, hanging between them like a ghost. Instead of easy banter, there was awkwardness, thick and impenetrable, and they fell silent.

“You’re still not speaking to-” he started.

“No. Never. Not until he gets his head out of his ass and apologizes to Hero. Maybe not even then,” she snapped. “He can get in my face about it all he wants. We’re done.”

“Maybe he'll come around. I'm sure everyone will eventually.”

“People keep saying that. Nice if they’d actually follow through,” she said bitterly.

“Yeah. It sucks.”

“You have no idea.”

Each lost in thought, they didn’t speak again until a few moments later, when the classroom door in front of them creaked open and Hero stepped out.

“I am so glad that’s over- oh, hello, Benedick,” she said, surprised to see him.

“Hey, Hero. Rough quiz?”

“The worst. Thanks for waiting, Bea,” Hero looked down at her cousin, who was putting her history book away.

“Benedick seems to think we can trust him to get us home without any deaths. Think we should take a ride? We missed the bus.”

“Oh, if you don’t mind, Ben, that would be amazing,” Hero said, smiling gratefully. “I wasn’t expecting the short answer section to take so long.”

“Told you,” said Bea. “Essay questions.”

“They get you every time,” agreed Benedick. “Shall we?”

Behind his back, Hero raised an eyebrow at Bea, who ignored her.

         Bea was expecting something along the lines of Leo’s car, which was always covered in layers of grime and empty food wrappers and the odd shoe or football jersey. Instead, "The Benmobile" (she was never letting him live down that ridiculous name), turned out to be tidy and neat, though old. The only things out of place were the cleats on the floor of the passenger side, and she kicked those out of her way without complaint as Hero settled in back.

True to form, she and Ben continued their banter on the ride home. Not-quite-friendship though it might be, teasing him with the Batman theme song was too much fun. Even Hero, who was quiet for most of the short drive, smiled a little when Ben started to sing it along with Bea, and then abruptly hit a bump. One overexaggerated bird-homicide false alarm later, though, they were pulling over in front of the Dukes’ house.

Hero thanked Ben quickly and ducked out of the car, and in the rearview mirror Beatrice spotted that knowing look in her cousin’s eye again. She made a face at her, but Hero was already gone, leaving her alone with Benedick again. 

“Thanks for the ride,” Beatrice said. “And, you know, the lack of casualties.”

“Hey, I aim to please.”

"Seriously though, I- Hero appreciated it. So... see you tomorrow?" She offered a small smile.

"Tomorrow," he agreed, smiling back. 

He waited until she'd gotten up to the house before driving off- not that she looked back enough to notice, or anything. She had that annoying theme song stuck in her head the rest of the night.

There was definitely, she thought, despite herself, something to be said for not-quite-friendship. 

                                                                                                                                     ***

Thursday afternoon had been a bright spot in an awful week, but that did not last long.

On Friday night, she found Hero huddled, shaking, in the middle of her mothers’ bed, her face streaked with tears, her breath coming shallow and sharp again, just like that night, like it was all happening over again, and Bea could almost hear Claudio’s frenzied shouts of betrayal in the background. She _could_ hear him, softer, tinny, coming from Hero’s phone.

 As her cousin lay there struggling for breath, Beatrice could see Claudio on the screen, his face twisted in hate and sliced open by the crack in the phone, screaming and shaking Hero, breaking her all over again, and where the clips on Facebook had cut off, this footage just kept going, showing everything, everything, and that’s when she knew.

Ursula had posted her video.

 “I didn’t mean to- stupid touchscreen, it just started p-playing and I couldn’t stop- it’s so awful,” Hero gasped, and on the screen, Pedro was calling Beatrice out again and she couldn’t look, couldn’t listen, all the wounds reopened.

 _Turn that camera OFF,_ shouted Benedick’s voice from the video, and Beatrice knew in another moment she would be comforting Hero, trying to steady her breathing, and he would be beside her- but the footage ended there. Hero’s grief, at least, could stay private.

She lay down beside her cousin, re-lived that whole disastrous night again. It was a long while before Hero's breathing evened out again.

_Way to fix things, Urs._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't kill me for what I did with Meg. I have my reasons, but I love Meg and I promise she'll come around. I hope that little section of banter made up for all the sadness here, and didn't feel too tonally out of place. I needed to start moving Bea and Ben closer together, but Bea isn't in a very open mood right now, so it's hard to find ways to realistically prod the friendship along. Sometimes I think these characters are actively working against me getting them together, which sounds very TeamB of them, doesn't it? ;) 
> 
> NOTE: I went back and cut some of the ride home scene thing, it really wasn't working and the chapter's stronger without it. But don't worry, there's plenty more of this story where that came from!
> 
> Chapter Six teaser: there's one more huge betrayal for Hero and Beatrice, and hey, whatever happened to posting YouTube videos? It's going to be Wednesday again before we know it, so I think a certain TeamB has a video to film!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In chapter six, there's a lot of tension between Bea, Hero, and Leo after Ursula's video of the party hits the Internet. And Beatrice has an unexpected text conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, one thing: I edited the end of chapter 5 again after I posted it, so you might want to reread. Basically I just cut Ben coming in for tea after giving the girls a ride home, because there's so much tea in this story already and I didn't want it to start feeling overused. I'm going to try to stop editing stuff after I post it, but when I do I'll always tell you in the notes on the next chapter. Anyway, enjoy!

Friday night was spent on damage control.

Hero had been staying in the aunties’ bedroom for the past few days. Beatrice couldn’t blame her for wanting to get away; the room was covered in little reminders and mementos of their relationship, and the entire space was tainted with the memory of the makeup video that Hero and Claudio had filmed there. Claudio had ruined everything, spoiled every safe space Hero had, just like that. Her home itself was polluted with the memory of her birthday night, and the aunties’ room was practically the only place in the house Claudio had never been, the only place that didn’t immediately make her think of him. Hero was even more unhappy and alone now than she’d been before, and it was all Claudio’s fault- well, and Ursula’s.

Needless to say, Ursula’s video description plea for Hero to call her back had gone unanswered. Bea was pretty sure Hero hadn’t even bothered to read it, and no wonder. Hero hadn’t wanted that video posted, any more than Beatrice had. Now, Ursula was just another person they couldn’t trust, Bea thought bitterly. She’d known that footage was trouble- but it usually felt a lot nicer, being right.

Hero had been shaken by the video, but she was okay now, hoping that maybe the footage wouldn’t actually do much damage.

 

             Leo was doing more than hoping. He was bound and determined to keep a proud face, to act like nothing was wrong. He didn’t even want Hero to tell her mothers that her first-ever boyfriend had broken up with her. They didn’t know about the videos, so there was no way they’d hear about any of this unless Hero, Bea, or Leo told them.

“But there’s nothing they can do for you, anyway,” Leo was saying angrily, when Beatrice got back from the kitchen with a glass of water and some toast for Hero. “This is _your_ problem, Hero- deal with it yourself.”

“That’s exactly what she’s trying to do, Leo!” Bea cut in. “And you’re not helping, so why don’t you just leave? Can’t you see she’s upset?”

“I’m fine, Beatrice,” muttered Hero, but Leo cut her off.

“This isn’t your house, Bea,” he snapped. “I’m in charge here, and I’m _trying_ to talk to my sister.”

“And you’re being an asshole about it!” Beatrice exclaimed. “You could show a little sympathy at least, after that video-”

“That video is exactly the problem here,” snarled Leo. “You think I want my family’s private business all over the Internet for everyone to see? How is it going to look, when people see all of that? You and your little friends don’t think, Bea. You don’t see that there are consequences here!”

“Consequences?” Beatrice spat. “Look around you, Leo. Your sister is hiding in her parents’ room, crying, heartbroken, every single day, and I’m the one trying to hold her together, and you’re talking to _me_ about _consequences_?”

“Beatrice, I don’t n-” Hero started, but again, Leo cut her off.

“Oh, that’s right, it’s been so hard for you two, hasn’t it?” he shouted. “Sitting in here watching _Titanic_ day after day, that’s been a real challenge!”

“That’s not-” Beatrice started.

“We are NOT telling Mum and Mumma about any of this, and that is _final_!” Leo bellowed, and he was gone.

 

              Beatrice glared after him, fuming. Leo didn’t seem to care how the footage was affecting Hero at all. He was just worried about his own reputation- the aunties wouldn’t trust him to take care of things anymore, and people would see what he had allowed to happen in their house. He hadn’t done anything to stop Claudio, he’d barely reacted at all. On top of that, he was still being really standoffish and nasty, only speaking to his sister and cousin when absolutely necessary. Beatrice thought he deserved whatever he got if he was going to keep being so childish about all this. If she didn’t know better, she might even think… but this was his little sister! He _had_ to believe her. He had to.

Bea had agreed not to tell her own parents what was going on either, but they wouldn’t call again for a while yet, so it didn’t much matter anyway. She’d spoken to them last when they’d called to wish Hero a happy birthday on the morning of her big day, before all of this happened. Beatrice had always been pretty self-reliant, and there was really no need to worry Mum and Dad.

But Hero’s parents- okay, maybe it was better they didn’t know, but Beatrice could see how much Hero wished she could talk to them, at least for a little emotional support. The decision, though, was made. The aunties were to be kept firmly in the dark, until things were smoothed over.

If they ever _were_ smoothed over.

                                                                                                                                   *******

               That night, Beatrice went to bed early- there was nothing else she felt like doing, anyway. Hero had asked her to leave shortly after the spat with Leo, so Bea had gone to her room, but her brain just wouldn’t shut up. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t sleep.

She kept going over and over that damn video in her mind, seeing the party and Claudio being awful and Pedro storming out after him and Hero crumpling in grief… She didn’t understand how anyone could watch that and not feel absolutely horrified. Even the memory of it was giving her a headache.

The overhead light was off, and the room was dark except for the light filtering through her window from the moon and the streetlight outside. Beatrice rolled over to the side facing away from the window, but turning away from the light didn’t help her fall asleep.

 

               A bright, artificial glow shone suddenly out of the darkness in the periphery of her vision. Her phone, sitting next to her in bed. It was probably Ursula again, trying to make nice. Because that would work. Bea ignored the phone and it went dark again.

A moment later, though, she felt it buzzing against her hip, and rolled over to reach it. She could at least turn it off, get a moment’s peace- but it wasn’t Ursula’s name on the screen.

Suddenly that horrible feeling was back. That hot, prickly, heart-pounding feeling in her chest, the way she’d felt before the party, worrying about having to see him again in a few short hours. The way she’d felt that night when Benedick had held her hand and made her tea and promised to help prove her cousin innocent.

Beatrice had been thinking about that night ever since she had seen the end of Ursula’s video, the part where Ben had shouted at someone to stop filming. In the moment, Beatrice had barely heard him, she was so busy with Hero. Tonight, though, she’d been startled by the loud noise, the anger behind it. Even during the worst of their arguments, he’d never sounded like that before.

He really did believe in Hero, then. He hadn’t known Claudio was going to do what he did, Beatrice was suddenly sure. He had been telling the truth, when he promised to help them, and now… Well.

She’d almost forgotten she still had his number in her phone. And what she’d saved as his contact name. Looking at the little screen, she almost smiled.

**Dickface - 2 New Messages.**

                           ‘ _I saw Ursula’s video_.’

                            _‘Everything ok?’_

Of course. She should have expected that Ben would have something to say about the whole Ursula mess, that he'd want to check in on her and Hero again. She kept forgetting she and Ben were basically friends now- it was just too weird. It had to be a fluke, because of everything going on with Hero. If it wasn’t for the fact that her entire life was so messed up right now, there was no way she’d be sitting here in bed, at nine o’clock at night, and actually considering texting him back.

Beatrice was honestly surprised he hadn’t deleted her number a long time ago- but then, she’d managed to hold onto his as well, and that didn’t mean anything, right?

Except that he’d been actively taking her side ever since the party, helping her pick up the pieces, lending her notes when she’d been too zoned out worrying about Hero to pay attention in class, and then Thursday with the ride home, letting her tease him, actually helping make Hero smile for a second there, making her, Beatrice, laugh for the first time in days…

She didn’t understand it. This time last month he’d hated her just as much as she loathed him, she’d seen it every time they’d argued. Beatrice had thought nothing could change that, but a lot of things were different now.

This was a bad idea, definitely a bad idea, but Bea needed something to distract her, and okay, Thursday afternoon _had_ helped take her mind off things for a little while. And it was sweet of Ben to be worried about her, weird though it might be. One little text couldn’t hurt, could it?

She sent a noncommittal response.

Beatrice:             ‘Oh. That.’

He replied quickly, and just as monosyllabically.

Dickface:              ‘ _Sucks_.’

Beatrice:              ‘Yeah.’

 _‘Did you read the description?_ ’

                             ‘It doesn’t matter, she shouldn’t have posted it, ok?’

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t just _not answer_ , even if she was right about this. He was the one who texted her first, after all!

Against her better judgement, she sent another message:

                              ‘Can we talk about something else?’

A few minutes later:

                               ‘ _Like what?_ ’

                               ‘I don’t know. Anything.’

                               _‘I can’t think of anything..."_      

                              ‘Do I have to do everything myself? Come on, read any _un_ scientific articles I can critique lately?’

He took a while to respond to that one, like he actually had to think about it. How many mango studies could there be in the world?

She’d almost given him up for a lost cause when-

_‘Not really. I did finish the last Game of Thrones book not too long ago.’_

‘You did not.’

                             _‘What, did I finish the series before you or something?’_

‘…’

_‘Wait, did I seriously? Oh, I will never let you forget this!_

_‘_ I’ve read it, dickface, now stop gloating and tell me what you thought of it.’

                            _‘I bet I still finished it first, though.’_

                           ‘In your dreams.’

Which resulted in a very long conversation about every single aspect of the series that could possibly be argued. Given the page count, that was a lot to bicker about.

It was a bit more friendly than usual, this argument. Almost like the way they used to be, back when- No. She shut that thought down as soon as it appeared. She was _not_ thinking about that. She didn’t need to feel any worse right now. It was pathetic, really, how much it still hurt to think about that summer- almost as pathetic as how easy it had become lately, not to remember it at all.

Almost as pathetic as wanting Hodor on the Iron Throne. She didn’t even want to dignify _that_ with an argument. Well, she did, but only because she had nothing better to do. And because she was right, and Benedick needed to know exactly why that was, and maybe, selfishly, she just needed to get mad about something besides defending Hero’s honor right now.

 It had nothing at all to do with her actually enjoying this conversation. She was _not_ enjoying talking to Benedick about the Song of Ice and Fire books. That would be ridiculous.

They were in the middle of discussing the merits and drawbacks of a narrative with all those different character viewpoints, and which ones were the most and least interesting to read, when Beatrice finally fell asleep, the phone hot against her hand from being on for so long. It buzzed again, but she was too far gone to hear the faint noise of a final message wondering where she’d gone, wishing her goodnight.

She dreamed, something about warm sunshine and her head resting heavy on someone’s shoulder and soft grassy earth underneath her fingertips.

It felt familiar, somehow. Almost like a memory.

                                                                                                                                *******

              The next morning, Beatrice awoke to a soft noise from the room next door. She had been dreaming, but whatever the dream was, it slipped her mind quickly as she regained consciousness, remembered last night, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, confused.

She heard another sniffling noise from the other room and got up, immediately worried. She’d have thought Hero would still be asleep downstairs, where she’d left her after the accidental discovery of Ursula’s video had blown over.

Looking into her cousin’s previously vacant room, she saw Hero sitting on the edge of her bed, holding the card her parents had sent for her birthday. It had gotten here a few days after the party, because of the long distance. Beatrice knocked softly on the doorframe, spotting a few little chipped places in the white paint beneath her hand.

Looking up, Hero smiled and waved her in. If that smile was paint, there would be more than a few chips in the façade.

 

             “Hey,” she said tiredly, as Beatrice sat down beside her. Hero probably hadn’t gotten a great night’s sleep either, Beatrice thought, feeling slightly guilty as she remembered the reason she herself had been up so late. Her cousin’s eyes were heavy with lost sleep, her blonde hair hanging dully down her back, tangled and in need of washing. She looked almost homesick.

“So… how are the aunties?” Bea nodded to the birthday envelope, which the aunties had filled with a couple of postcards from their most recent destinations. It wasn’t the first time Hero had read through them, and the corners were slightly bent from the pressure of fingers slipping them from the envelope.

“Fine,” said Hero. “Apparently Italy’s lovely, I’m glad they’re having fun.”

“They’re supposed to Skype you and Leo again soon, aren’t they? Are you sure you don’t want to talk to them about the party?” Beatrice said gently.

Hero shook her head. “You heard what Leo said. They can’t know. It’ll ruin their trip, and I- I’ve caused enough damage…”

“He said that?” Beatrice exclaimed, indignation carrying her back to her feet. “Hero, that’s ridiculous. This is not your fault. You did nothing wrong, okay?”

“But everyone thinks I did! If it’s that easy to believe… what’s wrong with me? I must have done something, to make everyone think… to make _Claud_ think I would _ever_ …” She trailed off, letting out a shaky breath, raising her eyes to the ceiling, trying not to cry again.

Seeing Hero like this, certain that she somehow deserved to be isolated and insulted for doing absolutely nothing wrong- Beatrice bit her lip to keep from indulging in another tirade. How dare Claudio make her think like that? How dare he?

“No! Whatever people think, that’s their problem, not yours. There’s nothing wrong with you!” she insisted, sitting down again and putting an arm around her cousin, who nodded once, quickly, swiping a hand under her suddenly glassy eyes.

“If you talk to Mum and Mumma when they call, just don’t say anything about it, okay?”

“All right,” Beatrice promised. “But if you do want to talk about it… I’m listening.”

“Thanks, but I think I just need to rest for a while,” Hero said. “What do you think for today, _Titanic_ again? Or _Romeo + Juliet_?”

“Or _The Great Gatsby_? If we’re naming tragic Leo DiCaprio movies,” put in Beatrice without thinking, knowing Hero’s comfort movie genre of choice. Not exactly Beatrice’s favorite, but Hero was the one who needed the comforting, after all.

“Ursula would like that,” said Hero with a hollow laugh.

“Shit,” Beatrice sighed. “I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s fine,” Hero returned her attention to the postcards, flipping through them one last time before returning them to the envelope. “I’m fine, I promise.”

“…You’re not going to call her back?”

After the video went up, both cousins had gotten a few texts from Ursula, but they hadn’t answered her yet. Personally, Bea was in favor of never speaking to Ursula again, but that was just a first reaction. Her cousin was usually more forgiving, but evidently, not this time.

“No,” said Hero, and that was that.

             It ended up being _Romeo + Juliet_ after all, and the last few slightly stale pieces of leftover birthday cake to soften the death blow. Beatrice thought the movie was way too melodramatic, but it certainly fit the gloomy mood around here lately.  _Never was a story of more woe…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terrible filler chapter right here! The reason not much happens in Six is that actually, Six and Seven were originally one long chapter, but it got a little ridiculous in length and I had no choice but to cut it in two. I hate the texting parts, because A) writing in text messages is a huge pain, and B) I chose a fandom I know nothing about for Bea and Ben to discuss, so I was forced to not actually show you any of the conversation. The conversation isn't really what's important to this story anyway, its inclusion was basically just a reason for Bea to contemplate Ben's role in the very end of Ursula's video and in her life since the party. The times, they are a-changing! (One thing I do like about using GoT for this section, is that there was totally a commenter on one of Ben's videos (maybe TRUTH or OLIVES) who suggested that if Ben liked Bea, one thing that could work as a conversation starter is Game of Thrones because it's her favorite show and he has all the books. So basically my Ben here just got very nervous and inadvertently followed that person's advice when he didn't know what to talk about. Well, I think it's cute.) :D And I have no opinions on who belongs on the Iron Throne or doesn't, that's all Bea saying Ben's choice is wrong, not me.
> 
> Also I'm sorry about the wait between chapters, as always. It's just how I work, but you're all lovely and patient and I appreciate that a lot, so thanks if you're still reading! Now I hope you enjoy Seven! Two chapters in one update! Yay!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bea and Ben film a video.

“Okay, so it’s this formula here, and then you multiply… no, no, not that one! I swear, you are _hopeless_. Why am I doing this again?”

It was Wednesday afternoon. There was a huge Physics test coming up, and something had possessed Beatrice to offer her house as a study space, to actually volunteer to spend more time with Benedick. It defied all explanation, but then, so did their Physics homework.

Beatrice leaned back, frustrated, and glared across the kitchen island at the worst studying partner the world had ever seen.

 

           He, for absolutely no logical reason, was grinning at her. “Because it’s less boring than suffering through Physics revision alone?”

“It’s definitely less _boring_ ,” she admitted grudgingly. “And more impossible!”

“It was also your idea,” Benedick pointed out, and it was just _wrong_ for a person to look that happy about Physics revision, honestly.

Bea was beginning to suspect he’d just stopped trying altogether and was resorting to teasing her about it instead.

Which, if she was honest, was better than last week’s silence. Ever since the Iron Throne debate, things were different with Ben. They weren’t fighting, they weren’t ignoring each other, he wasn’t walking on eggshells around her like the week after the party. They were sort of- and she didn’t even want to think it, lest she jinx it or something- getting along.

She didn’t even feel that warm, prickly feeling as she glared at him over her notes- at least, not that much. She was probably just nervous about the test tomorrow. And about Hero, who was still her first priority.

She’d spent the rest of the weekend with her cousin, just trying to be there for her. It was a quiet weekend. Hero had baked some cookies to relieve her stress and watched loads more sappy movies without really paying attention to them, and refused to talk about Claudio, or the video, or her parents, or anything, really. Beatrice had stolen some cookie dough and sat through all that awkward romance movie stuff and spent the whole time worrying about Hero, who, she could tell, was also worrying- about going back to Messina High on Monday.

 

               As it turned out, the situation at school was mostly unchanged, even with Ursula’s video out in the world and all. There weren’t really that many kids at Messina who bothered to watch the videos, outside of their little group of friends, and most of what was in Ursula’s new one had already hit Facebook last week anyway. Adding another source of footage didn’t do much besides keep the scandal on people’s minds.

Everyone was still either ignoring Hero completely or whispering and laughing at her behind their hands. Just today Beatrice had told off three different people and glared several more into submission, all for talking about her cousin. She knew Ben had been doing the same when he heard people talking. At least she didn't have to stand up for Hero alone.

Bea had passed Claudio in the hall once this week, and it was all she could do not to scream at him in front of everyone. She didn’t know whether he’d seen Ursula’s video. Maybe he could do with being forced to relive every minute, like Hero had. Then he might even feel the tiniest bit sorry for what he’d done. Maybe not, but the thought of seeing him squirm definitely made Bea feel better.

Hero, on the other hand, was constantly squirming under her classmates’ scrutiny. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and Beatrice noticed that on Monday she’d barely touched her lunch. Talking to the aunties over the weekend had helped her a little, but Hero was still perfectly miserable, and Beatrice didn’t know what to do for her anymore. Their support system was crumbling, their family was clueless, and most of their friends had now turned on Hero in one way or another.

            Ursula seemed to have given up trying to apologize for the video, and was leaving Hero her space- at least she was doing that much right. She had come up to the lunch table in the courtyard Monday and said she was sorry, promised Hero that she was still here for her if she needed anything (Beatrice had let out a noise of angry disbelief), and had then scurried off somewhere, maybe to sit with her Year Nines and Balthazar.

Balth was still their friend, too, but refused to take sides. Sometimes he hung out with Hero, Bea, and Ben, other times he was with Ursula and the Year Nines, but mostly he was in the music room doing his own thing. He had come over a few times since the incident, and it was good to have him around. He and Hero had first bonded over music, and he had no end of sad breakup playlists and hopeful getting-over-you playlists and angry power ballads for her to listen to now.

Beatrice hadn’t ever really spent much time with Balthazar before, and though he was quiet, it was a companionable silence, completely different from the impenetrable awkwardness of school these days. It was sort of refreshing. Ben said Balthazar was usually neutral in conflict, had always been most comfortable on his own anyway. Beatrice was surprised; she hadn’t realized they were good friends. She had sort of forgotten that while she was home in Wellington most of the time, Benedick had always been here, at Messina, and some of his best-friends-of-the-week had sort of stuck. Ben was actually kind of good with people, when he could be serious enough to try. It seemed she’d been alone in completely despising him for so long. She snuck a glance across the kitchen island at him, wondering how she’d missed that.

 

            Right now, Benedick was tapping his pencil against the page of his Physics book so relentlessly she wanted to take it away and _snap_ it. He still got under her skin like no one else, that hadn’t changed- but he’d been an almost welcome distraction lately. Ever since the Game of Thrones conversation, Beatrice hadn’t been able to stop herself from talking to him. She seemed to have become friends with him against her will all over again.

Bea had been ranting again just yesterday about how awful everyone was being, and Benedick had listened and actually agreed with her, which was bizarre. He had tried to talk her down from her anger at Ursula, who, okay, had meant well, but that anger was still justified! It was good to be able to tell someone what she was thinking, and there was kind of no one else left who would put up with her right now.

There were things she hadn’t told him much about- how worried she was about Hero, how nasty Leo was being, how guilty Bea felt about Meg, who was still not speaking to anyone in what used to be their little group. She’d been thinking about Meg more and more, every time Hero came home and went right to her room, weighed down with a day’s worth of nasty words. Had Meg meant what she said, about knowing what that was like? Was this really Meg’s reality, everyone talking about her personal business behind her back? Beatrice felt sick. Not only was she powerless to stop what was happening to Hero, but she could hear herself judging Meg for the same exact offense- making her own choices, choosing the wrong guy. The more she thought about Meg and Hero, Pedro and Claudio, the whole mess, the angrier Beatrice got with everyone, including herself.

And that incessant damn pencil tapping was not helping matters.

 

                “Okay, that’s it,” Beatrice snapped, marching around to the other side of the kitchen island and grabbing the pencil from Ben’s hand.

“Hey!” he protested.

She ignored him, pulled up another seat, leaning close to pull the textbook towards herself.

“Now, what exactly do you need help with?”

“Uh… everything?”

Beatrice sighed. “Okay, let’s get started.”

             A little while later, after a lot of bickering and a couple failed attempts, they had almost arrived at an answer. Beatrice watched silently as Benedick scribbled down the next part of the calculation. Brow furrowed, he was biting his lip in concentration, and as she watched him, she realized how close they’d been sitting. If he hadn’t been writing, she’d barely have to move her hand at all to touch his, to entwine their fingers like they’d been the night of the party. They were sitting in almost exactly the same spot where Leo had surprised them that night.

She folded her hands and tried not to think about the fact that their legs were touching under the table. At least she was close enough to kick him if he started tapping his pencil again.

“I think I get it now,” said Ben triumphantly, and Beatrice couldn’t help but smile as she answered.

“Finally!”

“Just because I’m not a Physics genius like some people-”

“You should be thanking me-”

Another little argument was forestalled by Hero coming quietly into the kitchen.

“You two are actually getting work done? I don’t believe it,” she said, just as the tea kettle whistled on the stovetop behind them.

“Yes! I’ve earned this tea,” said Benedick, getting up to help Hero get everything ready.

“You’ve finished exactly _three_ problems. Out of twenty-five!” Beatrice pointed out, but to be perfectly honest, she was ready for a break as well.

Hero couldn’t stay long; she was headed to piano practice, the first time she’d been out in a while. Beatrice watched her cousin sipping tea and contributing one-word answers to Ben’s comments about the merits and failings of Earl Grey versus English Breakfast. It wasn’t much, but at least she was talking.

Hero was still very pale and subdued, heavy dark circles under her eyes- but she looked almost happy right now. Weirdly enough, Ben and Hero got on really well together. _Too_ well, Bea thought as they started making fun of how eagerly she reached for her mug, even though she always said she didn’t like tea. What, was she not allowed to change her mind now?

“Hero, you’re supposed to be on my side here,” she said, falsely petulant.

“No comment,” Hero’s lips quirked up into a small smile over the rim of her mug. Those smiles had become so rare lately.

“At least quit teasing me about it- ah! _Tea_ -sing!” said Bea, but her heart wasn’t in her laughter at the accidental pun. She was preoccupied with all her thoughts about the past few miserable days, and the way Hero’s hands shook as she took another dainty sip of tea.

Hero didn’t spill a drop- but Bea could tell it was a close thing.

                                                                                                                      *******

After Hero left, they got back to work. Or, they tried to.

Beatrice was still distracted by thoughts of her cousin. Even when Hero was enjoying teasing Bea earlier, her good mood had been temporary. When she stopped paying attention, her face fell just slightly, the glint in her eyes dimming, her small smile vanishing. Before Beatrice could ask what was wrong, Hero had gone.

She might not have noticed if she hadn’t known her cousin so well, but Hero was clearly still miserable, still blaming herself for everything. She hadn’t even wanted to go to piano today- she’d decided to skip her usual class and just practice at Balthazar’s instead. Balth wouldn’t press her about Claudio, but Hero didn’t know who she’d run into if she went anywhere else- or what they might say about her. This whole thing was getting way out of hand, and Hero was paying the price.

 

         Meanwhile, there was still Physics to think of, and a partner who, sans pencil, had resorted to tapping his fingers nervously against the marble countertop in between problem sets.

“Beatrice?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, I was just-”

“You all right?” Ben asked, looking nervously at her hand holding the pencil in a death grip. She tried not to look too upset, but her anger showed on her face all the same.

“Yeah… No. No, I’m just- I’m so _mad_ that Hero can’t even go to piano anymore without being afraid. I’m angry that people are still saying all this is her fault! It’s _Claudio’s_ fault! Why doesn’t anyone believe that?” Beatrice took a breath, relinquishing the pencil before it broke, slamming it down against the countertop. “I just want people to know that she didn’t do anything wrong, I want them to stop making her life hell, I want to _do_ something!”

“Okay,” said Benedick calmly. “What should we do?”

“What do you mean, what should we do? What _can_ we do? Short of _killing_ Claudio, I don’t see what-”

“Well, you want people to know Hero’s innocent. So, tell them.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“We can put it on my channel, if you don’t think you have the viewer base for it- ow!”

She had hit him on the arm, a little harder than she was intending, maybe, but he deserved it. “Not the time for _humor_ , Bene _dick_.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have- I just thought, maybe, if you put Hero’s side of things out there, really explain what’s happening… You’re due for an update anyway, don’t you usually post new videos on Wednesdays?”

 

            Beatrice hadn’t even thought about that. Her own vlogs were the last things on her mind lately, but Ben could be right. They could make a vlog explaining everything. It was what Ursula had been trying to do, only better. They could choose exactly what to say, instead of letting the footage of that night speak for itself. This actually might work.

“Come on,” she said. “The camera is in Hero’s room, we can just film there, she won’t mind.”

“Are you sure you shouldn’t ask her first?” Ben looked a little uncomfortable with the whole thing all of a sudden.

“If she doesn’t want us to post the video, we won’t post it. And it isn’t like the Internet’s never seen her room before!”

Beatrice poked her head out into the living room, checking that Leo was still parked in front of some sports show or other. He’d decided he ought to _chaperone_ their little study session, and Bea had managed to get him to settle for sitting out there, where he’d be out of their way but still able to see and hear them if he tried. Not that she and Ben would ever be doing anything other than studying and, apparently, impromptu filming. Bea was still bristling at the implication- but Leo was distracted now, so they were in the clear.

“Let’s go,” she whispered, starting towards the stairs.

 

“Are you really sure-” Benedick said, but Beatrice had already grabbed his hand and was pulling him towards the stairs with an energy that only came from finally having a plan, something real to do, to fix things. It wasn’t until they’d reached the landing that she came back to herself and dropped his hand. He followed her into her cousin’s room, switching on the light.

              Bea sank down onto Hero’s bed, the sight of the room curdling her stomach. It was still so cheery and colorful in here, a relic of a happier Hero who seemed to have vanished before her eyes. Hero was one of those people whose almost perpetual positivity makes things seem all the worse when they’re upset. It felt wrong, to see her silent and gloomy and always red-eyed, and it felt wrong too that her bedroom was still so bright and happy. Her sadness had filled the house in the past few weeks, covering everything in shadow, but it had never quite reached this little room. It was no wonder she couldn’t stand to be in here anymore.

There was a picture on the wall above Benedict Cumberbatch- Beatrice and Hero beaming, lost in laughter, Bea’s hair falling into her face, both girls just a little too close to the camera for comfort. That afternoon felt like centuries ago, now.

 A wad of blue fabric in the corner by the closet was the unlucky blue dress with the eyeliner-stained skirt. Hero had been so excited about that dress, and on the floor beside it was the lipstick Claudio had used on her in the makeup vlog, thrown there in a fury. Far removed from anger, suddenly Beatrice was just sad for everything her cousin had lost.

_This had better work…_

 

               Benedick pressed Record, and Beatrice had no words. He sat down beside her and started to talk, completely at ease on-camera, his voice so steady and sure, you’d never guess anything was wrong. She didn’t even protest when Ben said her viewers had probably heard a lot about him. She’d have denied that to the ends of the earth on any other day- but it was kind of true.

He was sitting so close to her, much closer even than they’d been down in the kitchen after she’d crossed the island to help him. She was distracted as much by his leg pressed against hers as she was by her sudden emotion at entering the room. She couldn’t move at all without touching him; their arms kept bumping together as he raised a hand to emphasize a point. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she just let them fall awkwardly into her lap as she tried to decide what to say.

                 Bea finally found her voice again when Ben started talking about Ursula’s video, because there was still no way it had been a good choice to put that up. If there was one thing that could always get Beatrice talking, it was Benedick being wrong about something. Really, she knew Ursula did what she did with good intentions, but Ursula’s good intentions were the reason they even had to make this video at all, and still Beatrice couldn’t find the words to explain yet again that Hero hadn’t cheated on Claudio.

She was once again bizarrely thankful that Benedick was here, although it was extremely odd to see him among Hero’s posters and pictures and fairy lights, completely out of place, yet fitting in perfectly. Beatrice could see the pair of them in the camera’s viewfinder, just as if she was looking at a frame from a video. This was real. Ben was in Hero’s room with her, and they were vlogging, and he still hadn’t changed his mind about supporting her in all this, and it meant the world to her. It was like being in some freaky alternate universe, one where she could almost trust him, where she could get away with staring at him just a little.

 She watched his face as he started talking about their wanting to make this video for Hero, insisting on her innocence as fiercely as Bea herself ever had. He was serious and friendly with the audience all at the same time, so even Beatrice couldn’t help believing whatever he said.

                 Ben had only just started getting to know Hero, through rides home and cups of tea, but he talked about her like he’d always known her, like there was nothing more ridiculous to him than the idea of Hero purposely deceiving anyone. Beatrice kind of wanted to reach out and hug him for it. And to shout, “Yes! Exactly!”

Just then, he turned to look at her, to get her approval, and she barely managed to look away before he saw she’d been staring. She nodded to the camera as Ben continued, seeming not to notice anything. Beatrice forced herself to look out across the room instead of at him. It would be a better vlog if they were both focused on the camera.

She could still see the dress balled up on the floor, and the pain on Hero’s face the night she’d worn it, and suddenly she couldn’t stop talking about her cousin. She would force everyone to see Hero the way she saw her, she would make them believe in her, she would make them see how wrong they were.

 “She sips her tea like an angel,” Beatrice insisted, remembering Hero’s shaking hands lifting the mug to her lips, never spilling a drop.

“She really does,” said Ben with a smile.

                 It was going really well, the video. They’d given their speech for Hero, and maybe people would listen, and things would get better. If they didn’t, Beatrice would make them. She let out her frustration and anger and all her conviction that Hero was telling the truth, and Ben took counterpoint, agreeing with her, still taking her side, filling in the dead air when she ran out of breath. They were a team, and the sheer improbability of that fact should be proof enough for anyone that they were telling the truth.

And then Leo, who had evidently discovered their absence, showed up to check on them, and another truth came out.

 

                Bea and Hero had looked up to and loved him their entire lives, and now Leo couldn’t even trust his own family enough to see what was right in front of his face. Leo thought his sister really had broken Claudio’s heart. He didn’t believe her. He cared more about a damn football team than he did about Hero, and Beatrice hadn’t even seen it coming, hadn’t wanted to.

Her cousin had always been a force to be reckoned with when he was upset. It was a Duke thing, she figured. She was old enough now to match him for hotheadedness, and she wasted no time telling him, loudly, exactly what she thought of him. The well-meaning, funny older cousin she teased, the football star she’d looked up to, the closest thing she had to a brother was gone, and all she saw in his place was this gullible, misogynistic asshole she’d never really known at all.

 Leo stormed off, leaving Beatrice stunned and even more furious than ever, and damned if she was going to let Benedick stop her from showing the Internet exactly the kind of bullshit Hero had been dealing with lately, exactly the kind of person Leo Duke had turned out to be. Finally, out of breath, out of words, she trailed off, righteous anger turning into the pain of disappointment, heavy and cold in the pit of her stomach. She felt like she might cry.  
  


               Beatrice felt eyes on the back of her head, staring at her after her outburst, and she knew when she turned to look at Ben he’d be looking back with that worried expression she really didn’t deserve. She couldn’t look up, but she needed to. She just had to get through this, end the video, and Benedick would leave and she could be alone to catch her breath, to figure out what the hell just happened. Just a few more minutes, just some kind of ending for the vlog, that was all. She had to do it, now.

Beatrice forced herself to look at Ben. And then the world just… stopped.

 

All thoughts of her cousins, of the last few hellish weeks, of the video camera still recording, fell into the back of her mind like white noise, the second she met his gaze.

His eyes were so _blue_ \- that was her first jumbled thought. She’d never noticed that before... or she'd forgotten it. There was a strange intensity there, something she couldn’t place- and a sadness, almost a longing, like he wanted to say something, but there were no words. Ben was staring at her like he never wanted to look away.

Bea felt herself take a breath, quick and sharp, hating the dangerous heat spreading through her chest. Maybe, absurdly, she didn’t want to look away, either.

She had no idea how long it had been when the dry air in the silent room finally forced her to blink, and the moment broke.

All at once the world and her thoughts sped up again. Beatrice sucked in another deep breath, trying to make sense of what had just happened. It was the most ridiculous thing. What kind of people _actually_ stared into each other’s _eyes_? It was like something from one of those cheesy YA romances Hero read sometimes, or one of those movies from the weekend. Beatrice hated that stuff, and this was so not the time - and the thought of Hero was enough to clear her head and fill her again with guilt.

 _Shit. Breathe. There are more important things to worry about than his stupid eyes, and it was just a glance, no big deal, calm_ down _already._

 

 

“Beatrice-” he said, “I-”

And his voice was sort of strangled and higher pitched than usual, like he’d spoken without thinking, like he couldn’t keep from saying it, and the vulnerability in his voice and the look in his eyes made her think she wasn’t ready. Whatever he was going to say, it was big and it was scary and she didn’t want to hear it.

 

“Benedick,” she breathed. “Stop. I- I can’t, I just don’t think I can handle one more word right now. I can’t do this.”

He was silent a moment, and whatever he said next, she knew it wouldn’t be the same words left unsaid a moment ago at all, and she almost wished she hadn’t stopped him.

“I just meant- I’m sorry,” he said. “This was a stupid idea, I shouldn’t have suggested it, I didn’t think- Leo-”

“That would’ve happened anyway,” Beatrice said sadly. “He’s been awful to Hero ever since the party. I think… I sort of knew. What he really thought.”

“He’s an idiot,” said Ben forcefully.

“Yeah, I know. I can’t _believe_ him!”

“I’m so sorry, Bea. I’m just… sorry,” he sighed. “I hate this.”

“Not as much as I do,” she said. “Not as much as Hero… _Hero_. How am I supposed to tell Hero about this? She’ll be devastated!”

“You’ll think of something.” Ben sat up straighter, moving closer to her in the process. “You’re amazing, you know. She’s lucky to have you.”

 Beatrice quickly got up to turn the camera off. She couldn’t face him, not if she was going to say what she had to say right now. No more distractions.  
  


“You should go.”

 

“…Oh. Okay.”

 

               She had promised and promised to herself that she wouldn’t get close again, wouldn’t make this exact mistake, but Ben wasn’t even halfway to the door before she’d stopped him.

She threw her arms around him, and immediately, without hesitation, he returned the hug, holding her close as though they did this all the time. She rested her head on his shoulder, the roughness of his button-down shirt against her nose as she inhaled. He smelled nice, and that was such a weird thought that she almost laughed out loud.

Oh, she _really_ should not have done this.

 

“You’re kind of amazing too,” Beatrice admitted into his shirt, and Ben actually did laugh at that. She loved that laugh, especially when it was the last thing she herself felt like doing. “Thank you for filming that with me. I don’t know if I could’ve done it alone.”

“I hope it works. Helps you, and Hero.” His words vibrated through her entire body, sounding deeper because of her closeness. She should probably let go now.

“I think it will. I think it already is,” she admitted.

Another moment and Beatrice pulled back, feeling a little less steady on her feet.

“So, uh, I should probably-?” Ben raised a hand to indicate the door. Beatrice didn’t want to see his smile falter when she answered, but she had to stop this. For her own sanity.

“Yes.”

 

“Unless you want to attack-hug me some more, I mean,” he teased.

“Oh, shut up. If you tell _anyone_ about this, I will deny it ever happened.”

“You,” said Ben in lieu of goodbye, “are my favorite person ever. And if anyone asked, I wouldn’t deny it.”

 

He was gone before she could even begin to formulate a reply. Which was unfortunate, because she was pretty sure she would have said it back. That he was her favorite person. Ever.

The scary part was, right then, it would have been the truth.

                                                                                                                   *******

              Beatrice sat at her desk, waiting for the footage from this afternoon to transfer from the camera to her laptop. She had tried to get back to her homework after Ben left. There was a mountain of Statistics to finish as well as her Physics revising, but she couldn’t concentrate. Between Leo being completely unreasonable, Hero being so unhappy, and Ben… well, Beatrice’s head was spinning. Halfway through the Stats worksheet, she’d given up. She’d already had enough coin-flipping problems to last a lifetime or more, she thought.

The video was the most important thing. Her viewers had been worrying about Hero, at least according to Ursula, and Bea had missed a week in her upload schedule already. This vlog would spread the truth, and maybe enough people from Messina would see it, that things would get better soon.

The video loaded, the editing software opened, Beatrice started to watch the footage back again. She smiled to herself as the Ben on the screen started his monologue about how great Hero was, and she glared as Leo appeared. He had only been on camera for a short amount of time, and Beatrice didn’t plan to cut much out of that. People needed to know.

“Nobody wants to be in the wrong, shamed like she’s been!” Leo was saying, and the onscreen Beatrice was just starting to argue back, when real-life Beatrice heard a dry, heaving sob that definitely hadn’t been in the video.

 

“What is this?” Hero gasped from the doorway.

Beatrice didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer- in another minute, Hero had seen everything.

“He doesn’t believe me…” she whispered. “When did you…?”

“This afternoon, while you were at Balthazar’s. We were trying to tell the viewers the truth, and Leo just-” Beatrice gestured to the screen, where the video was still playing. She hit Pause and crossed the room to where Hero was standing, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“Were you going to tell me?” Hero asked, her voice hoarse, brittle. “Or were you just planning on uploading that first?”

“Hero, of course I was going to tell you, I just thought I could-”

“Make things _better_? Fix everything, by telling the Internet how much my own brother hates me?”

“This will work, I promise it will,” Beatrice said, trying her best to sound soothing and supportive. “Hero, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to put a stop to this, don’t worry-”

“No, Beatrice, it isn’t going to be okay. If you couldn’t even get Leo to trust me, why should the entire Internet be any different? You can’t _fix_ this, no one can. You can’t do anything to help me. You can’t coddle me and pity me and make promises you can’t keep. You’re not helping, so please just stop!”

“Hero, I- I was just trying to- I’m sorry, okay? I won’t post it, whatever you want. I didn’t mean-”

“I know,” said Hero. “I know you didn’t. You never do.”

“Hero, I…”

“I think you have a video to upload. Goodnight, Beatrice."

 

She’d never heard Hero sound so cold before, so defeated.

 

           Beatrice sank back into her seat, feeling tears prick her eyes for the first time since the party. She _hated_ crying. "Ugh," she sighed, turning to the computer, wanting to turn it off. She had become her least favorite thing: a hypocrite. She was just as bad as Ursula, trying to help and making everything worse instead. Hero had sounded so frustrated, so tired. She probably hated Beatrice now, and Bea knew she deserved it. 

She had paused the video right on the moment when she’d locked eyes with Benedick, and suddenly she couldn’t quite catch her breath. The way he was _looking_ at her… Why would anyone ever look at her like that?

He looked at her like she was everything, like just seeing her like this was killing him. Like she really was his favorite person in the world, like he wanted to reach out and hold her and make her feel better, like he… _oh_.

 

_You’re amazing, you know._

 

_I’m here for you._

 

_Benedick is in love with Beatrice._

 

Hero was right, Beatrice realized, with something like elation. Or horror.

Ben _liked_ her. He really, really liked her. She hadn’t quite known whether to believe it at first, but now, she could see it in his eyes. That was it, the intensity, the emotion she’d been unable to place, and… and she could see it in _her own_ eyes, too, right there on the screen, her expression practically unheard of and utterly indeniable.

_Oh._

Oh, _no_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did Beatrice just realize? What will she do about it? What's happening with Hero? And Leo? We shall see...
> 
> So yeah, this is chapter 7. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but hey, why not get it out of my brain and onto the screen so I can move on with my life? I hope you liked it! (And I hope you got the little reference to a certain song from a certain Montage?!) Not sure when chapter 8 will be ready, but it will be very cute, and a little less sad, so look forward to that! I've mentioned a couple times on my Tumblr that there's a really adorable scene I was planning that was supposed to be in chapter 7, and that's now in 8, so that's exciting!
> 
> Also: in light of the BLEURGH thing, I still don't know how far exactly this fic is going to go, so I don't know whether that will be addressed here, or how, but if you want to know my thoughts I answered an anon ask on tumblr about it, so that's there.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Beatrice has nowhere else to go, so she ends up in the last place she expected. Also, there is fluffiness. In more ways than one.
> 
> (A/N, 12-9-17: Unfortunately, I likely won't be updating this fic again. It was originally supposed to be 10 chapters, but I wasn't able to get there in the end. I may come back with a chapter listing what would've come next, but for now, I wanted to mark this fic complete, because I feel it stands on its own as my headcanon for what went on behind the scenes of this portion of NMTD. I'm still in the fandom and my other fics are going strong, but Some Things Change will always hold a special place in my heart as my NMTD magnum opus. I love you guys, thanks for sticking with me. <3, Ceili

Hero wasn’t speaking. To anyone. And it was Beatrice’s fault.

In fact, Hero had barely come out of the aunties’ room at all since finding out the truth about Leo. She crept around the house like a ghost, shying away when discovered, disappearing before Beatrice could call out another useless apology.

She had taken all of the rest of Hero’s support system away in one fell swoop, one stroke of a key, one frame of video. Hero maintained that she was fine, that she wasn’t upset, that she just needed her space right now- but her words turned into a cough, and she wouldn’t meet her cousin’s eyes.

Leo wouldn’t talk to either of them, just glared his way past them when forced, sticking to his horrible words. The three of them skirted around each other, not speaking. Beatrice walked blindly through the next few days, trying desperately to find a way to fix what she’d done. She was the one who always had something to say, who never shied away from speaking up- and she spent the rest of that week utterly lost for words.

            Beatrice’s first response to pain had always been anger. Instead of letting herself feel hurt, she would simply give in to her temper, allow it to take over so she wouldn’t have to think about what had happened. It was easier that way. If she focused on hating whoever had hurt her, maybe she wouldn’t notice the _ache_ of it quite so much.

She’d certainly turned to that instinct a few summers ago, for one.

It had been the same when the guys had started spreading all that bullshit about Hero- Bea had gotten angry, had lashed out, had wanted to _kill_ them for doing this to her cousin. She hadn’t wanted to feel how much it hurt her to see Hero so upset, how much it hurt that two people she trusted and cared about had turned on them. Even when Ursula had posted that awful video, Beatrice had just shut her out, focused on her own anger instead of the pain of watching Hero lose another friend.

But anger took energy. Fury sapped her, drained her, and she’d been so angry for so long that now, she was out of strength. There was nothing left, no energy inside to fire her up and push away her sadness- so that’s what she felt. Sadness, hopelessness, nothing more.

She couldn’t fix this, couldn’t save Hero from any of it. All she wanted was for things to go back to normal, to be okay again. She just wanted everything to _stop_.

And not the way it had during that weird staring-contest of a video ending with Ben, either.

             She still hadn’t really thought about what it meant, the way the Beatrice in the video was looking at Benedick, or the strange pull in her midsection when she saw him in the hall at school the next day. She just didn’t want to lose her only ally, she told herself- but instead of going over to talk to him, she looked away and kept walking. It was just too much, right now.

She’d been doing so well, too. Since the party, she’d barely thought about what she had overheard. She’d managed to compartmentalize, filing away the knowledge that he liked her, focusing on Hero as much as possible. But now… now she couldn’t help thinking about it, couldn’t even deny it to herself anymore. There was… _something_ there- and it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter, not now.

            Confused and upset, she’d slapped a title on the vlog and cut most of the stuff after Leo left- in fact, she had ended the video right at the moment when she and Ben had locked eyes and all her thoughts had just fallen away in favor of... _ugh_. The fleeting moment of vulnerability bothered her, but somehow, she couldn’t bear to cut it out.

                                                                                        ***

            Beatrice was more alone than she could ever remember being before. By Saturday afternoon, she itched to just _talk_ to someone- someone who wasn’t so wrapped up in all this, who would listen and commiserate and understand. Everyone she knew here was right in the thick of it, and it wasn’t her story to tell anyone else, so she just stayed in the house, silent and miserable, keeping an ear out in case Hero needed anything.

It wasn’t like Beatrice even had a right to be upset- she wasn’t the one whose entire life had turned upside down, the one everyone was talking about, the one whose breath was still frighteningly short when she cried. Still, the silence in the house was overbearing, pushing down on Bea with an incredible weight, and she just had to get out.

            The sky looked menacingly clouded when she slipped out into the yard, but Beatrice didn’t care. She walked until she reached the park, where she’d come with Hero or Pedro a thousand times before. It was the kind of park that had no playground equipment. The empty stretch of grassy field was the source of deep disappointment when you were a little kid, but solace and space when you got older.

It’s amazing how time changes things, Beatrice thought. She’d expected to find Auckland exactly as it had always been every other visit, but since she’d been back full-time, it kept surprising her. It kept diverging from her memories, just enough to feel slightly wrong. That was how this park still felt- like restoring an old photo and remembering that the past existed in color, too.

She found a thick-trunked old tree and sat, leaning back against it. Apparently, most people had left ahead of the storm, because she didn’t run into anyone else. She stayed there for a long while, watching the empty landscape and missing her friends, missing those summers when everything was simpler.

Just the other week she’d been here, she and Pedro, kicking a ball around and procrastinating on their History project, laughing about the kids who didn’t get lucky enough to be paired with a friend. Those kids wouldn’t have someone they could rely on to shoulder their share of the work, someone who would make the effort of problem-solving seem just a little less hopelessly dull. Someone to talk to, the silence broken by more than just the rustle of wind through leaves…

            Beatrice jumped at the sudden, loud buzz of the phone in her pocket. Coming out of her reverie, she scrambled to answer it, but she’d already missed the call. Her mother’s cell phone, according to caller ID.

Mum had left a message. Shivering slightly, Bea put the phone to her ear to listen.

“Beatrice?” said her mother’s familiar voice, the sharp edges of her American accent softened very slightly by her years in New Zealand, and her tone was warm, if a bit distracted.

In the background, her dad’s deep voice chimed in a quick hello, and then Mum continued, “It’s your mom and dad. We just wanted to check in, make sure you were doing ok and that your cousin got her birthday card and enjoyed her party. Give Hero and Leo our best. Now, I have a late meeting in a few minutes and your dad has lesson plans to write, but feel free to give us a call when you get this message. All right, bye honey!”

Her dad chimed in again with a hurried goodbye, and she could hear a page turning and her parents’ muffled voices still talking when the message finally cut off. Dad was probably reading absently through his lesson plans that whole time, and Mum had sounded like she always did when she was working, like she wasn’t really all there with you, like she was thinking about something else.

Same old, same old. The sheer normalcy of the message was jarring, somehow.

Suddenly, for almost the first time since she’d gotten to Auckland, Beatrice missed her parents. The familiarity of their voices, the knowledge that however busy they got, they were always right there in the background, if she needed anything- she hadn’t realized how much she missed that. She clung to the sound of her mother’s voice, far away and effortlessly level, calm.

                _We just wanted to check in, make sure your cousin got her birthday card…_ The words made her flinch, settling heavy in the pit of her stomach. Of course, Mum had absolutely no idea what was really happening here. As far as she knew, the big day had gone off without a hitch, and Beatrice had just been too busy having fun with her friends to hear her phone ringing. As far as Mum knew, nothing had changed at all. Bea envied that ignorance more than she could say.

All she wanted, suddenly, was to call back. To just talk with her parents for a while, and pretend that everything was normal. She wanted to step into their world, the world where Hero’s heart was never broken, where Bea herself never made the mistake of starting a vlog at all, where she knew who she loved and who she hated and everything made sense again- which of course was exactly why she couldn’t call.

Mum and Dad would _know_. They would hear it in her voice, they’d figure out something was wrong, and Bea might cave and tell them the whole story just to get it all out of her head. Dad would probably want to call the aunties, who would come home early and… no. That would definitely make things worse.

She sat there staring at her phone, thinking over it all, until the sky had gone almost completely dark, the air heavy with impending rain. What was she supposed to do now?

               Bea considered that she could try calling one of her Wellington friends, just for a comforting ear. But that would mean reliving the whole thing yet again, and it wasn’t as if she could just drop by to get out of the rain, not when her friends were hours away. They probably had their own drama to sort out anyway, knowing St. Miranda’s.

              She could go home. She could go back and hope that by some miracle, Hero and Leo would be sitting in the kitchen, discussing what sort of takeout to get for dinner, staring nervously at the clouds on the horizon and trying to guess at when the storm would hit. Leo would ask her about her day, rushing through the conversation until he could turn to talking about the goings-on with the football team and ask her input on the plays he was working on. Full of false pride, Leo would pretend that her suggestions were much less helpful than they really were, and she would laugh and grab him in a stifling hug until he admitted she was right. Hero would tell her some interesting filming fact or makeup tip she’d gotten from Ursula or Meg, or gleefully share the latest sweet surprise the old, not-awful Claudio had planned for her. Both siblings would wonder loudly if Bea had gotten into any good debates with anyone today, and she would scowl and laugh and deftly avoid the subject. Just like always…

She could hold that possibility in her mind until the very last second, but it still wouldn’t be true. She supposed she could always just stay out here and hope for a particularly lucky bolt of lightning to make the decision for her. Judging by the darkening sky and the flash of light in the periphery of her vision, she wouldn’t have long to wait.

                Bea finally rose and started to walk, in no particular direction. Almost immediately, the sky opened on her, but she didn’t mind the wet. She just had to get away from her thoughts and the trees and the whole angry world.

  _I’m not going to make this easy for you, lightning_ , she thought, glaring up at the clouds from beneath already-dripping hair and pushing onwards through the storm.

                                                                           ***

             Bea hardly felt the cold air and rain on her skin. She marched on, relying on instinct, barely paying attention to where she was going. At least, until she found herself, almost without knowing it, standing in front of a very familiar house.

She could have laughed out loud. It was too much, that she had ended up here.

Bea hadn’t been here since that summer four years ago, and even then, she’d only visited once or twice- they’d spent much more time at her cousins’ house, and at ( _ugh_ ) Pedro’s, and the beach. Still, this little brown house was strangely familiar, like a picture in her mind, a carefully preserved memory that didn’t feel quite real.

 _She shouldn’t be here_.

That was the thought that kept running through Beatrice’s mind as she climbed the three short steps up to the bright red front door. She _definitely_ should not be here.

And yet-

              The windows were dark, and for a moment she considered that maybe Benedick wasn’t even actually home. Maybe she could still escape, because really, she shouldn’t impose, shouldn’t assume that he was willing to just drop everything to cater to her sudden weirdness. She couldn’t quite comprehend the idea that he honestly cared about what she was going through.

The hurt, confused look on his face, the other day when he’d realized she was ignoring him again. The emotion in his eyes at the end of that video, and everything that came after such a foolish, thoughtless vlog. Hero’s sobs as she’d watched the footage of Leo’s betrayal, the footage that _was_ Beatrice’s own betrayal. The guilt and the pain that Beatrice couldn’t push away anymore, and the rain rolling down her back- all of it rose up inside her, making her hand waver for just a moment of indecision.

Really? This was what she had come to, now?

She reached out and pressed the bell.

             It rang out at top volume, chiming through the house, muffled by the walls, and it seemed to take forever to stop reverberating back to her ears. After several torturous seconds she was on the point of giving up, hating that she’d even thought to come here. Pathetic.

And then the door swung inwards and Benedick was standing there before her in an old Fife and the Drums t-shirt and his red jeans. His hair looked even darker than usual, and flatter, like it had recently been wet, and the look of shock on his face was almost comical. The level of sheer relief suddenly coursing through Beatrice at the mere sight of him was, frankly, terrifying.

 “Hey,” he managed, before she cut across him, stammering.

“Are you- doing anything right now? I just- I mean-”

“No! I- nothing, really,” he answered, so quickly he stumbled over the words. “D- Do you need me?”

What a way to phrase it, she thought bitterly. Did she _need_ him? Seriously?

She took a breath, then released it, exhaling somewhere in the midway between a gasp and the ghost of a laugh, wanting desperately for the answer to be _no_. She kept thinking of the other day- the unexpected hug, her whispering into his chest, thanking him for the video, his arms around her, his steadiness and calm- _no_. She didn’t need him. She didn’t.

             She felt ridiculous, standing here, whispering, “Can- Can I- come in? I just… I can’t go home right now, and I don’t-” She cut herself off, unable to finish the thought: … _I don’t have anywhere else to go._

“Yes,” he said without hesitation, finally seeming to notice the rain and moving aside for her. “Of _course_ you-”

But she was already pushing past him, sliding off her wet shoes in the hall. It looked the same in here, still papered with an awful flowery wallpaper that she seemed to remember from years ago, which Ben’s parents had planned to have removed. Apparently they’d never quite gotten around to it- and she knew she was being rude but the fact was, the longer she stayed out there, the more time she’d have to talk herself out of this.

She took a breath, covering her face with her hands for a moment, collecting herself, and turned around.

Ben looked positively alarmed now, still waiting by the now-closed door like he was a little afraid to come any further into his own house. “What-”

“I’m sorry,” Beatrice sighed. “I shouldn’t have- I don’t know what to do. I made everything worse. I had to get out of there, I just-”

Her voice caught, her throat suddenly hot with impending tears, and her hands curled into fists. Not here, she couldn’t do this here, she _wouldn’t_.

“Hero’s not…?”

“She’s fine, she’s- well, it depends on what you think _fine_ is, but-”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Ben said, relieved. “Don’t worry, okay? You can stay as long as you need to, I don’t mind.”

She nodded, sniffling, trying to regain some measure of control, and she felt him touch her shoulder, then pull back so quickly she could’ve imagined it. Like he’d thought better of it.

“You- You’re all wet.”

“Really, I hadn’t noticed,” she snapped, wrapping her arms around herself to keep from shivering.

“Here,” he started down the hall. “I’ll find something for you to change into-”

“I don’t need anything- and where are you going?”

“To, uh, to my room? To find you some dry clothes-”

“Did you move?” she asked without thinking, following him upstairs. She hadn’t been expecting to go upstairs. If her memory served, his room should be-

“Sorry?”

“Oh, no, nothing.”

                                                                                         ***

          They climbed the stairs amid Bea’s protestations that she didn’t want to change, her (admittedly rain-soaked) Grumpy Cat shirt was just fine, thank you very much. Instead of listening, Ben led her into his room, crossing to the dresser and retrieving a truly hideous old greenish purple plaid shirt for her.

“That should fit, I think,” he said breathlessly, tossing it to her. “At least it’s dry.”

"Fine, I'll wear your ugly shirt, now close your eyes, dickface," Bea snapped, seizing the offending garment. She supposed she _was_ a little bit uncomfortable in the wet shirt, and changing couldn’t do any harm.

"Okay, okay," Ben said, raising his hands in surrender and turning around to face the door. Beatrice let out a noise of dissatisfaction, and Ben, getting the hint, sighed and covered his eyes with one hand for good measure.

           With some difficulty Beatrice pulled off her wet shirt, her skin prickling with cold and with embarrassment. She was standing in the middle of Benedick's bedroom, for the first time in- well, _ever_ , and now she was shivering in only her slightly rain-dampened bra, and oh, God, he was _right there_ , and if he were to turn around-

If he were to turn around, see her like this, look at her in awe the way he had in the video, like she was beautiful, like she was _everything_ … if maybe her pulse was pounding and her head was spinning and she actually felt… _No_. _Nonononono._ Never.

Her stomach turned, and she pressed a hand to the bare damp skin there and tried to breathe.

Bea had considered it, the two of them, just for a moment. She had thought- she had almost wanted- no. _No_ , she was Beatrice Duke, and Beatrice Duke did not think about the Dickface like that- and she absolutely did _not_ get butterflies in her stomach over the thought of it, no matter how much it suddenly felt suspiciously like that.

 _Evil_ butterflies, they had to be. Carnivorous butterflies, eating away at her insides, reminding her to be very afraid of this… this _feelings_ thing. She wouldn’t let this happen. Beatrice was going to find herself a butterfly _exterminator_.

 

           She turned away, to face the room at large, and tried to control her breathing, hoping Benedick hadn’t somehow noticed her silently freaking out. Bea slid her goosebump-covered arms into the sleeves of the flannel and started on the buttons, gazing desperately around the room for something else to think about.

Her memory had been right. This little upstairs room definitely wasn’t where he used to sleep. She’d never been in here before.

Ben’s new room was so... different. It felt oddly empty, the wood-paneled walls pressing in on the too-small space. There was a little bookshelf lined with a handful of volumes, and a few small knickknacks lying around and on top of the books. The desk held only Ben's laptop and a weird little statue of a horse that seemed to be half a reading lamp, and everything was arranged so carefully. There was no clutter, no dirty laundry or textbooks on the floor, no old papers on the desktop, nothing. Even the bed was made, blue sheets tucked tight at the corners, a book without a dust jacket waiting patiently on the pillow for the next time he felt like reading.

This wasn't the untidy basement room Bea remembered, every corner filled with unpacked cardboard boxes. Back then, Ben hadn't even had a dresser yet, had had to keep most of his things in these haphazard piles on the floor until his parents could "figure something out" for him. Now there was the small chest of drawers out of which he'd grabbed the shirt she was buttoning, and on top of it, what looked like a plastic flamingo was lying on its side next to a photo frame with a shadowy picture of a much younger Ben and his parents in front of an old house Beatrice had never seen before. 

The basement room had been a mess, but it had had character, the markings of a life that had just started moving in. It had seemed to suit the loud, excitable, funny kid she'd spent all her time with for those two months. This, though, this pressed and organized little space- it was almost the bedroom of a stranger.

The only things out of place- the only things still familiar to her- were the wrinkled and crooked posters on the walls. Bea smiled at the sight of the old Deathly Hallows movie poster by the bed. She’d had a poster just like it at the house in Wellington, but it had gotten lost in the move. When she'd first put it up, Bea remembered, she'd wrinkled hers a bit too. 

 

Behind her, Benedick cleared his throat nervously. She knew what he was asking.

"Yeah, fine, open your eyes," Bea snapped, turning to face him as she rolled up her sleeves to free her hands.

 

He smirked at the sight of her- wisps of wet hair still sticking to her forehead, her cheeks flaming, the flannel shirt hugging her body, fitting her closer than expected. They were almost the same size.

The shirt was unfairly warm and soft and it smelled so _good_ , like laundry detergent and, well… attack-hugs. Of course. Beatrice crossed her arms tightly over her chest again, and frowned back at Ben.

 

"Are you sure this is your room? Does a human being really even live in here at all?"

"Yes, Beatrice, I live in here." Faintly amused.

"But it's so... _clean!_ Who honestly keeps their room like this? Where's all your mess?"

"I dunno, I guess I just like things neat."

"Ah, so you're only a _metaphorical_ mess, then," Beatrice said, without thinking. She was expecting some snarky remark back, but instead Ben just stared at her.

 

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, and there was an edge to his voice, like he was annoyed but trying not to let it show.

 

"Hey! You're not supposed to _agree_ with me when I say shit like that! Just because I’m here and everything is _awful_ and I’m- wearing your shirt… I- it _doesn’t_ mean I want your pity! You’re allowed to fight back!"

"I don't want to fight with you,” said Ben, perfectly serious, and Beatrice was starting to be really tired of his newfound levelheadedness. How could he not be as discomfited as she was right now? How could he not rise to her bait?

How could it be that instead of feeling better every time she insulted him, she just felt even worse?

 

"Because _I'm_ the mess, literal and figurative, right?" She snapped. "I'm the pathetic one.”

“No, hey, you’re not-”

“ _Don’t_. Don’t be nice to me right now. It’s way too weird and I don’t deserve it.”

 

“Beatrice, what happened? Tell me what’s wrong,” Benedick said softly, but his voice wavered nervously around the words as he stepped towards her. She backed away, further into this stranger’s room.

 It occurred to her, not for the first time lately, that after almost five years, strangers were exactly what they’d become. It was no surprise- fourteen and eighteen were lightyears apart. How could they _not_ have changed?

“I- It’s _everything_. I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped.

“Okay,” he said, backing off, but Beatrice couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I messed up. I could blame Claudio, Pedro, Leo… I could even blame _you_ for this, but it wouldn’t be the truth. It’s me, me and that awful vlog. I made everything worse, I’m the reason she’s sick- and what if it happens again? What if she can’t breathe, and I’m not there because I’m a coward and I can’t face her anymore? I- I can’t…”

Beatrice choked out the last words amid a sudden thickness of tears sticking in her throat. She backed up further, until the back of her legs hit hard against the wood of the bed frame and with a shuddering gasp she was knocked down into a seated position on the blue bed.

“I… I’m sorry,” Ben tried, struggling to find the right words. “She’ll be okay…” He came over and sat next to her, just close enough to put a hand on her arm again, a clumsy little gesture of comfort. She let him, and this time, he didn’t pull away.

And Bea just… couldn’t help herself.

She told him everything.

            Voice shaking, she confided all the things that had happened since the video, everything with Meg and Ursula and Leo, all the guilt and anger and fear she’d been holding onto for weeks and everything that was going on with Hero and her lungs.

Ben was so easy to talk to, and letting go of all her worries was such a relief… and somewhere along the way, she realized, she’d started to trust him again. Strangers they might be, but that was still one better than enemies.

Beatrice’s voice broke and the tears came at last, running silently down her cheeks as she finally admitted just how scared she was. Any moment could easily bring another disaster, and if one more thing went wrong, she honestly thought she might explode.

“I don’t even know if th-there’s anything really wrong. Sh-she could just have a c-cold, or she could be h-having another attack, and I can’t s-stop it, she w-won’t even talk to me. It’s my f-fault… all my fault…”

“It isn’t all on you, though,” Ben told her, when her speech came to a shuddering halt at last. “Maybe we shouldn’t have tried to film a vlog, but what happened afterwards is because of Leo. And Hero being- being sick, that isn’t your fault, love.”

“It _is_ , though,” Beatrice sniffed. “I just- oh my god. Oh my- why is there a _cat?!_ ”

 

                Sure enough, a beautiful tortoiseshell cat had just slunk gracefully into the room. It stopped before them, sniffing suspiciously at Beatrice’s legs. Apparently unimpressed with this visitor, the cat looked up at Bea and Ben with piercing yellow eyes.

“ _Oh_ , h-hi, pretty. Hello! Oh, aren’t you so pretty,” Bea said softly, shifting away from Benedick so she could reach out towards the animal. “What’s your name?”

The cat shrunk away from her touch at first, with a haughty glance and a flick of its tail. She reached out again, and this time managed to stroke the feather-soft fur just once before the cat sprinted for the darkness beneath Ben’s desk, where it lounged imperiously.

 “You’re not going to believe this,” admitted Ben with an unmistakable air of utter resignation. “But her name’s Bird.”

“You’re _kidding_. Oh my God, you are _obsessed_!”

“I am not kidding,” he assured her, clearly holding back a laugh. “Promise.”

“When did you even get a cat? You didn’t have one when…” she trailed off, not wanting to mention that summer. “I thought your dad was allergic.”

“A bit difficult to have an allergic reaction from an ocean and a couple of continents away, isn’t it?” Ben said bitterly. At her look of confusion, he explained, “Dad moved back to England. Beginning of Year Eleven, it would have been- that’s when Mum and I got Bird.”

“I’m so sorry,” Beatrice said softly. “I… didn’t know.”

He nodded sharply, not looking at her. “No, it’s fine. We’re better off.”

There was a tense, silent moment, during which a memory echoed in Beatrice’s mind- sitting in that basement room with Pedro and Ben and hearing shouts echoing from overhead, and then Pedro had taken charge and herded them off to his house instead- she remembered now, why they’d never spent much time here. Bea felt awful for bringing this up, but she dared a glance at Ben and saw that he was smiling again as he continued the story.

“Actually, I wanted a parrot, but Mum said I would just teach it swear words and it would be really noisy and annoying. And Mum’s a cat person- we had one, before we came to New Zealand. So we compromised.”

“And you got a Bird after all,” Beatrice couldn’t help laughing, giddy with emotion from all that crying, and still looking eagerly at the space below the desk, where the cat’s bright amber eyes glowed. “It’s ridiculous, but I kind of love it.”

“Didn’t you used to have a cat too?” Ben asked conversationally. Bea was surprised he’d remembered that. She had a vague memory of showing him a picture on the crappy flip phone her parents had given her for her fourteenth birthday.

“Yeah. Mum and Dad took him to Australia with them. I miss him so much, but Leo’s apparently got an allergy, so no pets for the Auckland Dukes. I kind of think it’s really because Auntie Hermia hates animals, though. She’s never been a particular fan of nature. Bad experience on a hike once, long story.”

“Ah,” Ben nodded, then fell silent, apparently not knowing what else to say to that.

There was a pause, not awkward, but contemplative. Beatrice thought about her family across the ditch, and how much she suddenly missed her cat, who’d follow close at her heels when she walked around the house. Dad liked to narrate their movements sardonically from behind his latest stack of academic research. ‘… _And the elusive Teenage Daughter makes a characteristically quick exit, pursued by Bear_ ’.

She figured Ben was thinking about his own parents and the story of Bird. It was just so perfectly _Ben_ , to have a cat named Bird- who didn’t seem keen on making a repeat appearance, to Bea’s disappointment.

“I don’t think she likes me very much,” Bea sighed, still watching the shadowy lump of cat under the desk.

“She’ll warm up to you,” promised Ben, nudging her arm in what Bea was pretty sure was meant to be a friendly way, but was actually just unbelievably awkward. (And sort of sweet… Oh, _bleurgh_.)

This entire _situation_ was unbelievably awkward- she’d just barged into the home of her worst enemy and only ally, stolen one of his shirts, thought almost lewd things about him while changing into it, burst into tears on his bed and scared his cat away. Benedick probably thought she’d lost her mind.

And yet, all he did was listen, and stay with her, and try to make it okay.

           They spent most of the rest of that evening just talking, sitting cross-legged on the floor by the desk, attempting to lure Bird back into the light with a catnip mouse. The repetitive motion of the dangling mouse in her hand and the hum of easy conversation worked wonders, and for the first time in what seemed like ages Beatrice’s mind was a complete blank.

She let Ben carry the conversation. He was good at that- and she was enjoying, for once, just listening to his voice, calm where it used to be indignant, warm where it used to be spiteful.

“Bird, Bird, Bird,” he called, swiping the catnip mouse and taking a turn trying to tempt the animal. “If you come out of there I’ll let you murder another bird!”

“She would never!” said Beatrice, scandalized.

“Oh, but she has! I even talked about it in the video, so you know it’s true.”

“Except _I_ don’t watch your videos, because they’re awful, and completely libelous towards beautiful kitties like this one, aren’t they Birdie-Bird?”

“ _Libelous?_ I’m telling you, she’s vicious- _ow_!”

“Ha!” said Beatrice triumphantly when Bird finally made an appearance, sinking her claws into Ben’s hand instead of the mouse he was holding. “You deserved that,” Bea informed him. Wincing, he shook Bird off, and with a hiss, the cat sidled up to rest against Beatrice’s legs instead.

"It's not fair," said Benedick, falsely petulant, watching as she stroked Bird's soft fur. "Half an hour with that mouse, and my cat already likes you better than me."

"All cats like me. They have good taste. And anyway, I am _so_ much better than you with a catnip mouse."

"Apparently," Ben said, reaching out to pet Bird too, and his fingers brushed against Beatrice’s own, resting there a beat longer than normal, until she reluctantly pulled her hand away.

 

“You’re still shivering,” he noticed with alarm as she did so. “This calls for tea.”

“Hmm, yes, please,” Bea agreed, still busy carefully stroking Bird’s tail, which curled around her hand, then whipped away again.

“I’ll be right back,” Benedick promised, and she looked up to watch him walk away. His hand went up to rub absently at the skin at the back of his neck as he glanced downwards, not quickly enough to hide his luminous smile. Beatrice let out a tiny breath that was absolutely _not_ a sigh.

 

“Mrowwww,” intoned Bird, watching her suspiciously.

 

“Oh, shut up, you,” Beatrice grumbled.

 

                                                                                       ***

 

Ben came back with the promised tea, making Beatrice laugh in surprise when he handed her the most awesome House Stark mug she’d ever seen. He knew her well.

“You are such a nerd, it’s actually _impressive_ ,” she said, nodding at his own Gryffindor House mug. Gryffindor, she thought, suited him.

“That’s what they tell me,” he said, and they both laughed.

 

Soon, she would have to snap out of it. She shouldn’t be happy- _couldn’t_ be happy, not knowing Hero was alone at home with a sore throat and a broken heart. The guilt was there, a hard knot in Bea’s stomach, the whole time she sat there and tried to pretend like nothing was wrong. She would have to stop being so selfish and go home, go back to make sure Hero was okay- but something would be different, after tonight. Yes, Bea would go back to that silent house a few hours later, hardly noticing Leo’s raised eyebrow at the sight of the flannel shirt she’d forgotten she was still wearing. Hero would refuse to even open her bedroom door, so Beatrice would give up and go to bed as well- and she’d still be alone, but also a little bit less lonely.

When she looked back on tonight, though, this moment is what Beatrice would remember- sitting uncomfortably on the hard floor in Ben’s room, the tea warming her through, and thinking maybe it wasn’t a stranger who lived here after all. Maybe she knew him of old, but after tonight, she also knew him better- and maybe she wanted to know more.

 

Bird the Cat was still curled comfortably in Beatrice’s lap, purring softly as Bea scratched between her ears with her free hand.  Bea looked up at Ben, ready to gloat some more about how Bird clearly liked her better- but he had already been staring at Beatrice, that same small smile lighting up his face as he watched her, like he was somehow unsure whether he was allowed to look quite so happy.

She would have expected Benedick to glance away in embarrassment at being caught. Instead, undeterred, he met her gaze. He didn’t even blink, asking with his eyes, _Are you okay?_ _Is this okay?_

Beatrice nodded ever so slightly, and in spite of everything, she was almost smiling back.

 

And then, at her very center, the uncertain, giddy fluttering of butterflies.

 

Evil, _evil_ butterflies.

                                                                                                                        ***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! I'm back with another chapter! I am still avoiding the tumblr fandom (except for my lovely fandom friends and readers, that is!) I know it's been a while, but I finally finally finished what's turned out to be one of my favorite chapters of this fic to date, and I'm so excited to post it. A few fun notes for you:
> 
> \- I don't know why, but to me, Mr. Duke has always been a university professor. When Mrs. Duke had to go to Australia for work, Mr. Duke just switched universities to one in Australia. I don't know where this headcanon came from. Mr. Duke is also a total literature nerd. He named his daughter Beatrice, because he likes old-fashioned fancy names.  
> -My headcanon Benedick (who is very important to me and is better than Canon Ben in every conceivable way, I'm sorry. I love Canon Ben too, but oh my god he's infuriatingly awful sometimes- but I digress) is totally a neat freak. He's pretty self-sufficient because his parents always left him to his own devices. I'm gonna explain away his messiness in LLL as a symptom of his social anxiety- his brain is too cluttered for him not to let his physical space get cluttered too. He still has anxiety in STC, I've decided. It's just not as bad because he's still at home and in high school and comfortable and used to things the way they are. Moving out and starting school and his friends drifting in LLL is what's going to trigger him big time and make things worse, and that's why he becomes hella dependent on the video camera in LLL. BTW, please yell at me if I write him through rose-colored glasses. I want him to be in-character, not overly sweet and stripped of flaws. I'm trying not to do that though. Also the part in this chapter where it said his hair's wet- that's because he went to football practice earlier in this day and it got rained out. I never got the chance to mention that, but he's been struggling with whether or not to go to practice and we'll get into that more later if I remember to start writing Ch. 9.  
> -In case I never get to mention this elsewhere, Ben's parents are Bianca and Byron Hobbes, and they are divorced. They inflicted the name "Benedick" on their son because they wanted their family to all have old-fashioned, literary-seeming B names, so they'd match. Byron Hobbes is pretty much entirely out of the picture now. It wasn't pretty. (It's also well and truly canonballed now, damn it. Well, this is fic, so I'm allowed to change things, and I did write this before we knew anything about Ben's parents. But his name's still Byron though. It sounds right. Gah, I hate that all my little headcanons keep getting squished.) Bianca was working late during this chapter. I headcanon her as a bit of a workaholic, which is why she's somewhat out of touch with her kid's life.  
> -The flannel comfort shirt (which I personally do not find too ugly, that's just Bea) being stolen from Ben is a headcanon that spread throughout the fandom, I just borrowed it. I think wibbelkind wrote an adorable ficlet about it quite a while back, you should read that! I also didn't think up Hero's Mums being Hermia and Helena from MND, so credit for that idea goes to whoever thought of it- let me know if you know who that was, because I'm so sorry to say I forget.  
> -Inspiration for the name "Bird" for Ben's cat goes partially to the Temperance Brennan mystery novels by Kathy Reichs. The title character's cat is named Birdie. I ran with that.  
> -Bird the Cat is one of my favorite headcanons I've ever come up with. Beatrice totally got some cat-cuddling therapy as well as Ben-cuddling when she spent all that time at Ben's house. (If I ever finish the rest of this fic maybe Beadick will get more tactile fluff. Might be a nice thing to write given the LLL situation they're now in, huh?) If you listen carefully in BIRDS, Ben- or I should say "Charlie"- is specifically confirmed to have a cat, who he is responsible for taking to the vet, and the cat kills a bird. So, Bird the Cat is canon, is what I'm saying.  
> -I know I'm terrible at animal naming (not an animal person tbh), and I also know that "Bear" is totally a dog name, but I couldn't resist the Shakespeare reference, so Beatrice's cat is named Bear, and he lives with her parents in Australia, and she misses him very much.  
> -Beatrice is still very good at denying her feelings, and Beatrice is also SO BAD AT DENYING HER FEELINGS. She is already so far gone for Ben. Isn't it glorious? I miss the simpler times of pining and worrying about Hero and not having to deal with biphobic flat rules, dammit! Take me back, please.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and I very much hope you enjoyed! I have no idea if/when I'll be able to update again, but I miss this, so you never know! :)

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter was supposed to be even longer than it is, so I had to cut it in half. The second half is chapter two, and it will be up very soon! It features Team Blessed, tea, and a late-night conversation about the evening's events.
> 
> Note: I was rewatching some of the videos, and the Dukes actually have two long counters in their kitchen, not a kitchen island, but I still like the whole metaphorical resonance of how Bea and Ben have a literal island between them during that awkward conversation, and also I'm too lazy to come up with a way to describe the two long counters, so you can forgive me for taking liberties with the layout of the kitchen. :)  
> 


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